The Isle of Man’s women’s hockey side underlined their quality as they successfully defended the Inter-Islands Tournament title at the NSC over the weekend.
A hard-fought 1-0 victory over Bermuda kicked off the Manx side’s tournament campaign on Friday night, Lou Slater’s early goal setting the scene for the rest of the tournament.
It was more of the same on the Saturday as the mighty Manx registered the same scoreline against Guernsey through another Slater strike.
A very strong Jersey side proved a tougher test in the next game, but a fine finish from captain Kim Carney was the difference between the two sides.
With the Manx already confirmed in the final, a hard-fought goalless draw with fellow finalists Orkney completed an exhausting but undefeated day of group games.
In front of a 250-strong crowd, Sunday’s final match started as another cagey affair, with much industry but few attacking spoils for either team in the opening 25 minutes.
Just before half-time, however, the deadlock was broken by a surging run from the dominant Zoe Carney who fired the ball into the danger area.
After good work from Sarah Blackman, the ball was coolly slotted in by Inter-Island debutante, Valkyrs’ Imogen Manning.
This lead, however, was not to last long. A clever Orkney penalty corner routine found Charlotte Thompson on the back post, who scooped the ball exquisitely past Sami Jordan in the Manx goal.
The Isle of Man were not to be denied as they retook the lead on the stroke of half-time.
Carney again was the spark, bamboozling an Orkney defender from a penalty corner before solidly striking the ball into the goal from the top of the D.
As the second half started the Manx, led by Vikings captain Kim Carney in midfield, started to exert their influence and created space for impressive youngster Laura Atkinson to stretch her legs.She took the ball down the right and hit a fine cross to the back post which Blackman did well to deflect into the goal at full stretch.
As expected, Orkney pushed and pushed until the final whistle through player of the tournament Caron Bews but is was all to no avail as the island defence, marshalled excellently all weekend by Kirsty Bowley and Nicci Cain, ensured that the game finished 3-1 leaving the Manx to celebrate tournament victory.