Black Sticks downed in both finals

Australia 2 Black Sticks women0 Australia 6 Black Sticks men 0

The Black Sticks men and women have both finished runners-up at the Oceania Cup in Sydney after losing to hosts Australia on finals day.

The women were forced to settle for second after the Hockeyroos powered home for a 2-0 win in yesterday’s gold medal match.

New Zealand had more circle entries and shots on goal but weren’t able to capitalise on their chances, while Australia knocked in two first half goals through Jane Claxton and Kristina Bates.

Black Sticks goalkeeper Sally Rutherford brought up her 150th test cap during the match.

Assistant coach Sean Dancer said it was a frustrating end to the tournament, knowing they could have done better.

“We started well and had some really good chances. Unfortunately our defence made a few errors and Australia made the most of those,” he said.

“The transtasman battle is something we always pride ourselves on, so we know we need to be better heading into our biggest challenge of the year, the Sentinel Homes Hockey World League Final on our home turf next month.”

In the men’s gold medal game, the Kookaburras outplayed the Black Sticks in a 6-0 victory to take their tenth straight Oceania title.

Australia controlled the first half and were up by two goals inside the opening five minutes after strikes from Tom Wickham and Dylan Wotherspoon.

The world No 2 ranked hosts added two more in the second quarter to take a commanding 4-0 buffer into the halftime break.

The Kiwis fought hard in the second half but were unable to slow the charging Kookaburras, who chalked up another two goals to take the spoils.