Hockey One Round 6 Saturday: Cobras Chase a Finals Spot in Hobart as Perth’s Perfect Women Go for Six in a Row

Friday night in Melbourne set the tone. Now Round 6 moves to Hobart and Perth, and Saturday has finals spots on the line at both ends of the country.

The Melbourne Cobras women can book a place in the finals in their very first season. All they need is a regulation win over the Tassie Tigers in Hobart, provided Canberra lose to Brisbane on Sunday. That’s a big ask for a brand-new club, but they’ve earned the right to dream about it. They sit fourth after a 2-0 win over Adelaide Fire, with penalty corners from captain Claire Colwill and Delfina Thome Guastavino doing the damage.

The Tigers women won’t roll over. They’re seventh, five points outside the top four, and a win is the only thing that keeps their season alive. Captain Penny Squibb has carried them, her four goals this season including their only strike against HC Melbourne. Hobart is their last home double-header of the regular season, and Hockey Tasmania has billed it as the centrepiece of a bumper weekend at the centre, with Hookin2Hockey and the under-16 state championships around it.

Tigers men need a response

The men’s game in Hobart matters just as much. The Tigers are fourth, level on points with Perth, and a win strengthens their grip on a finals spot with two rounds left. They took a 5-1 beating from HC Melbourne last week, so this is a response game. Coach’s message is simple: every result carries weight in a seven-game season, and the Cobras are the team nobody wants to face right now.

Because the Cobras men are flying. Their first win of the season came in Bendigo last week, a 10-3 demolition of Adelaide Fire, and it wasn’t close. Peter Scott scored five. Jake Whetton, the former Kookaburra, got four. That’s nine goals between two players in one afternoon, and the Tigers’ defence will have spent all week thinking about it.

It’s the first meeting between the two clubs, so there’s no history to lean on. Just a Hobart side defending fourth against a Cobras side that finally found its scoring boots.

Perth’s women just don’t lose

Over in Perth, the Thundersticks women are chasing a sixth straight win, and honestly, it’s hard to see who stops them. Five from five, three goals conceded all season, finals spot already booked after Jolie Sertorio’s late penalty corner beat Brisbane 1-0 last week. Now they add a debutant and a returning goalscorer to the mix.

Defender Jaeda Ritchie makes her Hockey One debut on Saturday, a reward for a big year that included captaining Western Australia at the under-21 nationals. Lexie Pickering is back too, and that matters. She was Hockey One’s leading women’s goalscorer in 2024 and played her part in Perth’s back-to-back championship campaigns. If she’s anywhere near that form, Adelaide have a problem.

The Fire are still hunting their first win of the season, and they arrive in Perth after the Cobras put ten past them in Bendigo. But here’s the wrinkle: Adelaide beat Perth 4-2 when these two met last season, and Georgina Dowd and Madison Naish both used to wear Thundersticks colours. That always adds something to a game, even when the ladder says it shouldn’t be close.

The men’s game has real stakes too. Perth are fifth, level on nine points with the fourth-placed Tigers and one goal behind on goal difference, after Daykin Stanger’s hat-trick in a 9-2 win over Brisbane. Stanger now has seven for the season. Sam Ashton returns to the side after missing that win. Neither Perth nor the Tigers can qualify this round, but a win keeps the pressure on, and Perth have never lost to Adelaide in Hockey One. Not once since the league started in 2019.

For our money, Perth’s women extending the perfect run looks the safest bet of the round. The Hobart double-header is the one to watch, though. Two games, two finals races, and a Cobras side that could make history in its first season.

Saturday 14 November fixtures (all times PKT)

Hobart, Aurora Energy Tasmanian Hockey Centre

• Tassie Tigers v Melbourne Cobras, men 7:00am, women 8:45am

Perth, Perth Hockey Stadium

• Perth Thundersticks v Adelaide Fire, men 12:30pm, women 2:15pm

Every match streams live and free on 7plus in Australia and through the Hockey One Global Pass overseas. Round 6 finishes Sunday in Brisbane, where the Blaze host Canberra in the game that decides plenty for the Pride women and Canberra’s men. The finals are 5-6 December on the Gold Coast.