14 Jul 2014

Black Sticks crush Chile

11:08 am on 14 July 2014

The New Zealand women's hockey team recorded a high-scoring rout for the second straight day at the Four Nations tournament in Ireland, after outclassing Chile 10-0 in their second match.

The trouncing follows Sunday's 9-2 thumping of the hosts in their opening match.

New Zealand, who are using the tournament as build-up to the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, pressed relentlessly and capitalised at every opportunity.

Although Chile's packed defence managed to hold out the Black Sticks until the 18th minute, the floodgates opened after that.

The first goal came from Capital's Anita Punt whose excellent use of base line skills allowed her to sneak the ball past the keeper.

Canterbury's Olivia Merry, who was playing her 50th international Test, scored the second goal six minutes later thanks to an excellent shot inside the seven yard zone.

Next up was Katie Glynn, who scored goals three and four only two minutes apart, with her second the highlight of the first half thanks to some clever well-worked attacking play that allowed her to slot it into the bottom corner.

In the second half, the Black Sticks decided to focus on increasing their penalty corner opportunities and this resulted in five conversions.

Merry and Punt knocked in their second goals - both from penalty corners in the 44th and 46th minute.

Five minutes later, aggressive pressing from New Zealand followed by an excellent midfield turnover ended with Rosie Keddell eliminating the keeper and pushing it hard into the corner.

The final three goals were all penalty corner conversions, with Kayla Whitelock, Glynn - taking a hat-trick, and Gemma Flynn scoring one apiece.

The team now have a rest day before meeting Canada on Wednesday at 4am (NZ time).

The playoffs for first and second and third and fourth take place early on Thursday morning (NZ time).