National League Finals

2nd May 2012

I am writing from London as the Aussie Stingers are here to use the Olympic facility in the ‘London Prepares’ test event.  We start off our campaign against Great Britain tomorrow, the USA Friday and Hungary Saturday.  This is straight off the back of our Australian National League finals last week in Sydney.  My team, the Brisbane Barracudas won the minor premiership going into the finals series, but couldn’t take anything for granted, as any of the top four women’s teams could take it out on the day.  The courier mail featured us (picture attached) in the lead up. We defeated favourite Victorian Tigers in a very hard fought semi-final to take us to the Grand Final against the Cronulla Sharks.  This was a rematch of last years Grand Final, which saw us claw our way back from a 5 goal deficit, to force our way into extra time, and win on a penalty shoot-out for our third consecutive National League title.  Things went a little bit differently this year, and it just wasn’t our day.  The Sharks goalie had a stellar game and we struggled to get anything past her.  Our sharp shooter Kate Gynther rocketed 2 in the net, and I managed to get a centre forward goal passed her, to give the Barras our 3 goals.  The Sharks managed 6 goals for a fairly easy victory. So our fairy tale ending didn’t eventuate, but onwards and upwards as they say.  As I mentioned before, we are now in London for a week, then head to Japan next week for World League preliminaries, then Shaghai for an intensive training camp, then Changshu for World League Super Finals.