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OFC U17 WWC Qualifying Tournament
Young Ferns Primed For World Cup Campaign
by Jeremy Ruane
The Oceania Football Confederation’s U-17 Women’s World Cup qualifying tournament takes place on the North Harbour Stadium Tigerturf on April 12, 14 and 16, and the host nation’s charges are as ready as they can be for the challenge.
Coach Dave Edmondson has named a strong squad for the event, which will see New Zealand’s Young Ferns taking on the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Tonga for the right to represent Oceania at September’s finals in Trinidad & Tobago.
As the host nation of the inaugural FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Finals, in October-November 2008, New Zealand qualified automatically for the event, so the current crop of Young Ferns are bidding to make their own piece of footballing history by becoming the first team to qualify for the Finals as Oceania’s representatives.
The Young Ferns’ preparations included participating in the 2009 Lion Foundation National Women’s League through October and November, and a three-match series in December against the NZ Secondary Schoolgirls.
Those eight games allowed Edmondson to formulate the nucleus of his squad, which he has since fine-tuned, in the process adding three players who’ve made a strong impression via their efforts in both the National Women’s League and subsequent training camps which have taken place since January.
The most experienced player in the squad is Katie Bowen, a member of the 2008 squad who came on as a substitute for the final twelve minutes of that famous 3-1 victory over Columbia, in what was the Young Ferns’ final match of those Finals.
She will be celebrating her sixteenth birthday during the tournament, but threw a scare into the camp on Sunday when an errant elbow from Glenfield Rovers’ team-mate Katie Rood caught Bowen on the nose as they celebrated the team’s final goal in their historic victory over Lynn-Avon United.
Thankfully, there is no break, so Bowen will be raring to go come Monday in a squad which is dominated by players who regularly feature in the Northern Premier Women’s League, most notably for the Claudelands Rovers and Metro clubs.
Between them, these clubs provide thirteen members of the twenty-strong Young Ferns squad, with Bowen, Eastern Suburbs duo Brittany Dudley-Smith and Evie Millynn and Three Kings United’s Stephanie Skilton also in the mix.
Names such as Rachel Head, Kate Loye, Sivitha Boyce, Kate Carlton, Holly Patterson, Grace Parkinson and Rebecca Burrows are set to shine in the coming fortnight, although the last-mentioned is in doubt for the tournament after picking up an ankle injury in Metro’s opening NPWL fixture in March.
Highly promising Hawera goalkeeper Chloe-May Geurts is one of three players who have opted to play for their local clubs rather than base themselves in the northern region. The others are Wellington resident Tessa McPherson and Ashleigh Ward, who plays for Coastal Spirit in the Mainland Premier Women’s League.
Skilton, Ward and Metro’s Min Khanthee are the three players who have been added to the squad since the eight matches played by the Young Ferns in late 2009, with nine of the players involved in those games having missed out on selection for the qualifying tournament.
All is not lost for those overlooked on this occasion, for should New Zealand qualify for Trinidad & Tobago, Edmondson will need to bolster the squad by three players to satisfy FIFA Finals regulations.
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I say should, because as has already been seen this year, with both Canada and the USA failing to qualify for FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals for the first time ever - the Canucks missed out on the U-20 finals, while the 2008 runners-up won’t be in attendance at T&T 2010 - New Zealand’s qualification at the expense of their island neighbours cannot be taken for granted.
The Solomon Islands squad, the Young Ferns’ first opponents in the qualifiers, has been training for the event under coach Luke Eroi’s watchful eye since January, and some noteworthy results against the likes of Koloale and Marist have been recorded recently.
Papua New Guinea and Tonga, too, have given New Zealand enough cause for concern in recent internationals at senior and age-grade level to know that they shouldn’t be taken lightly, and both Edmondson and his assistant coach, Jill Gilmore, will be pressing home that fact to their young charges from the moment they go into camp on Wednesday this week.
Matches take place at 12pm and 3pm on each Matchday, with the Young Ferns featuring in the second game on each day, against, in order, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga.
The tournament winners will join Brazil, Canada, Chile, Japan, Korea Republic, Mexico, North Korea, Venezuela and the host nation at Trinidad & Tobago 2010. The three African teams will be determined in May, with the three European contenders finalised in June. The finals take place between September 5 and 25.
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