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Oceania Qualifiers
NZ To Unleash Lethal Weapons On Pacific Rivals
by Jeremy Ruane
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American Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tonga will find themselves in the firing line on the North Harbour Stadium Tigerturf next week, as they contest the Oceania Football Confederation’s U-20 Women’s Championship.
The island nations will be up against a Junior Ferns squad bristling with lethal weaponry of the goalscoring variety in the round-robin event, which kicks off on January 21.
The final confirmation of the squads has revealed a New Zealand combination boasting ten survivors from the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Finals in Chile, eight of whom have already been capped at full international level.
Among them are Sarah McLaughlin, Lauren Murray, Hannah Wall and Rosie White, a quartet of players well capable of inflicting mischief and mayhem, sadness and suffering upon opposing defences even without the flair and finesse which the likes of Annalie Longo, Nadia Pearl and squad captain Anna Green add to the mix.
Thirteen members of the Junior Ferns squad have graduated from the Young Ferns team which excited the nation throughout the inaugural FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Finals in New Zealand fifteen months ago, while there are a handful of players who will be sporting the silver fern on the international stage for the first time.
Midfield general Emily Cooper narrowly missed out on selection for that U-17 squad, but has forced her way into contention with some impressive performances for Auckland’s championship-winning National Women’s League squad in the latter stages of last year.
That competition also proved beneficial for the international prospects of Elise Mamanu-Gray (Football South) and Terri-Amber Carlson (Capital Football), both of whom caught the eye in the NZ Secondary Schoolgirls’ matches against the Young Ferns in December.
Another to shine in that three-match series was the powerful and versatile North Force striker Hannah Wilkinson, whose reward for scoring in all three games is a call-up to a Junior Ferns squad aiming to qualify for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Finals which take place in Germany in July this year.
Tony Readings’ squad kick off their campaign - and the tournament - with a 1.30pm engagement against American Samoa on Matchday One (Jan 21), a match which will be followed at 4pm by the clash of Tonga and the Cook Islands.
The latter take on the Junior Ferns two days later in a 4pm affair, while at the same time on Jan 25, they lock horns with Tonga in what is likely to be a winner-take-all clash to determine who will join England, France, Japan, Korea Republic, North Korea, Sweden, Switzerland and the host nation, the countries which have already qualified for Germany 2010.
The remaining seven contenders will be known following the completion of qualifying tournaments taking place in Africa, Guatemala and Columbia before the end of March.
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