Div 3 Result Aug 21

“We lost 12-4 to an extremely fit, disciplined and strengthened Waikato team. With the addition of two very competent new international women in the Waikato team and the opportunity to practise the previous week in Slazenger due to Auckland’s default,  our chances of winning were limited on the day.

Thankfully we secured additional team members Charmaine Ouyang, Nigel Sherbourne, Sidonie and Croydon Rutherford to our team to replace Tee, Lillian and Tiya who were unavailable or injured.

To their credit; Maxie played on with a bad dose of flu and a fever, Charmaine stepped up and played number one despite not having played all year, Tanya had a hand injury from netball and couldn’t close her hand properly, Kavithiya from juniors took on the challenge of Div3 singles, Sidonie performed out of her skin despite the well trained opposition and Wayne stubbornly continued despite his knee injury. Our team performed very well and took more games than Wgtn did off Waikato in the previous tie despite their strengthened team. Dylan had an awesome game against their top man James Patterson, Josh beat Te Ao Kura in a very long game and Croydon narrowly lost his singles to Reon McFarlane. The combinations of Dylan/Croydon and Tanya/Croydon were outstanding despite never having played together before.

Unfortunately the spark was gone for the second tie against Wellington with nothing left to play for and we lost 14-2. This tie was played against a fresh Wellington team to whom Auckland (their first tie on the day), unbeknown to us, had defaulted earlier in the week. Charmaine/Josh and Tanya/Croydon put together awesome mixed combinations in this tie with Charmaine regaining her previous form.

Our extreme thanks goes to the Manawatu players who against adversary continued with our goal to get through to Div2. We didn't make it but we put everything we had into it. Also without the dedication to the sport of players like Sidonie, Charmaine, Croydon, Nigel and Kavithiya we wouldn't have been there on Saturday. You were awesome guys. And a big thank you also to Badminton Manawatu who have supported us 100% with our quest”