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Fighting Fit!
Football Ferns Fighting Fit For Cyprus Cup Challenge
by Jeremy Ruane
The Football Ferns flew out on Sunday night to participate in a fledgling international women's football competition, the Cyprus Cup.
After being introduced to the international calendar as a six-team competition a year ago, the Cyprus Cup has already grown in size, with New Zealand one of the beneficiaries of the increase in numbers.
With the remainder of the year set to see the domestic scene significantly bolstered by the involvement of the bulk of New Zealand's female footballing stars on a regular basis, the four matches the national team will play in Paralimni and Nicosia are a key component of the Football Ferns' international year, supplementing their three-game schedule at January's Four Nations Cup in Guangzhou, China.
The Football Ferns' captain, Hayley Moorwood (pictured), has high expectations of herself and her team-mates over the course of the next fortnight. “We've set our goals as a team, but we wouldn't have busted our butts off over the last six weeks if we didn't expect to get to the final!”
This writer can vouch for that, having witnessed a fitness test early in the Ferns' preparations for this tournament in which Moorwood herself scored 20.2 in the first `yoyo test' of the year.
“We had another `yoyo test' last week”, says one of the country's fittest and finest footballers, “and everyone recorded 20s and 21s. It's an accurate reflection of how much fitness work we've been putting in since the Four Nations Cup.
“The girls have been training up to three times a day over the last six weeks, with weights sessions and fitness sessions supplementing our ball-work sessions. Overall, our preparations have been pretty good.
“The things we've been working on are coming along nicely, and we're all on the same page. As well, we come off the pitch after training feeling confident about what we're working towards. It's a good feeling, to be honest”.
Such has been Moorwood's personal workload of late that she twice had to defer this pre-tournament chat, her apology - “I'm rushing round like a mad woman trying to get the last things sorted!” - a classic one-liner from a young lady who has very much grown in a role first thrust upon her in Japan in May, 2005.
The then understandably nervous Moorwood, who made history as the youngest captain in New Zealand's footballing history when leading out the Football Ferns for that match in Tokyo, is, less than four years on, set to etch another entry into the record books where this prestigious position is concerned.
When Hayley leads the Football Ferns into battle against Canada at the Cyprus Cup, it will be her twentieth international as captain of her country. No-one in the 136-match history of New Zealand's national women's team has donned the armband more often.
The accolade reflects well on the recently turned 25-year-old, who has become a highly respected leader among her peers and associates, and thrives on the responsibility which the captaincy brings with it.
Naturally, she is justifiably proud of this achievement, but even more so of the squad she is about to lead into battle, what they have achieved together over the course of the last couple of years, and what they are as a group.
“No one word sums up the Football Ferns”, says Moorwood. “There are four facets - commitment, discipline, unity and passion - which, combined, best describe our foremost strengths, and which have been seen at their best over the past six weeks, when they've come to show the togetherness of the team.
“It's not only the players, though. The passion and input of the coaching staff is just as important to our combination. They work as a team within the team, and spread the workload around so that, should any of us need to, we can approach any one of the staff with any concerns, queries, technical issues, etc.”.
One thing of which the squad and coaching staff are well aware is just how close the Football Ferns are to achieving consistently good results on the international stage.
In the last year alone, they suffered ten narrow
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defeats and two draws - with Canada and Japan - in the sixteen internationals played, results which, on another day, could well have seen the Football Ferns celebrating victories like those recorded against Papua New Guinea and, famously, Argentina in the last twelve months.
Moorwood readily acknowledges these close calls are just as frustrating for the players to endure as they are for their supporters. “A lot of it comes back to learning from our mistakes.
“We've covered a lot of ground over the past couple of months reflecting on games over the past year. This has involved analysing our performances, studying the opposition, seeing what could have been done differently, and learning from the mistakes that we can't afford to make on the world stage”.
They certainly can't afford to be made over the course of the next fortnight, if Moorwood and company are to fulfil their ambitions of making the Cyprus Cup final.
Standing in their way initially are the inaugural trophy winners, Canada, in a match which kicks off at 1.45am on Friday, March 6, NZ time. “We've played them a few times now”, says the Kiwi captain, “and drew with them last time round. They have a new coach now, so we're not quite sure what to expect of them, but we're still quietly confident of our chances”.
Matches against Russia (March 8, 1.45am) and Holland (March 11, 1.45am) see New Zealand entering the unknown to an extent, with the Junior Ferns having encountered both nations during their “Project Russia” campaign in 2006.
“Both teams could throw anything at us”, says Moorwood, adding, with a nice hint of menace in her tone, “just as we can throw anything at them!
“Our preparations in Cyprus will determine how we go in these games. On non-playing days, we'll, as a team, need to fully utilise the footage of our opposition with which we'll be provided by the coaching staff, in order to help us achieve our team goals”.
After their three pool matches, the Football Ferns have one more game in the Cyprus Cup, against either England, France, Scotland or South Africa, the teams which make up the other group in the eight-team tournament.
The competition marks just the second time in history that New Zealand's senior women's team has played in Europe. Two matches against Germany, on the 1998 Champions Tour, mark the only other occasion when the Football Ferns have found themselves gracing these northern climes.
It's a trip they hope to repeat at least twice more in the next three years, with Germany hosting the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup Finals, a year before the Olympic Games take place in London.
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