Pride goeth before...

With a 3 test series we knew NZ would come out hard and they did. They scored in the first 5 or so minutes to go one up. Our first half was a bit of a shambles but we got our act together in the second half. We had a number of short corners and a lot of them were wasted with mistraps or high hits. One of mine went through the goalie's legs but didn't croos the line and eventually Janet scored one. That took us to extra time and we were both scoreless. I felt I did at least something by cutting off 3 passes along the right in the last minute to box them up.

It went to penalty flicks and unfortunately we went down 3-2. After both sides put in the first 2 we missed one, then they missed one. I had a chance to put us in front and hit the goalie's foot. Our goalie saved one and we need the last to even up but their goalie saved it. We were a bit down and now need to win on Saturday to win the series. We had hoped to wrap it up today.

We arrived back at the hotel for our pool session to find a sign saying it was out of order. Great we thought, but it turned out to be a joke from one of our team and we had to go in after all. Once I'd showerred the coach and I went down town where I got the thank you pages printed ready for siniing by the team. We had a picture of the team on the thank you note for the support staff. I also got the present for the assistant coach, who is seen in the picture below.

The team meeting was also a chance to have some cake with Myra, who's birthday was today.

We left for dinner and met up with the bu that went to the last game and finished up in the Crazy Farmer, which had steaks for those that wanted them plus a range of otehr dishes. I had the seafood rissotto and I was not hungry when I finished it. The manager was very good and set us up in a separate room with enough space for every one at a long table.

Most of the team came to our room after wards where we had a few drinks, some nibbles, conversation and signed the cards, photo etc.