Junior Black Sticks Women Named for Junior World Cup, With Elliott and Findlay Back for More
New Zealand’s junior women get their turn now.
Hockey New Zealand has named the Junior Black Sticks women’s squad for the Junior World Cup cycle, and it’s built on the group that won the Oceania qualifier on the Gold Coast this month. Kaea Elliott and Niamh Findlay are back in, Emma Shotter too, and there’s a familiar spine to the whole thing: Georgie Shotter in goal, a defence run through Rikaela Roodbeen, Holly West and Charlotte Donaldson, and a midfield where Ella Meecham, Kate Kominik and Lucy Watkins have been doing the quiet work all year.
Continuity is the whole point
Junior teams churn. Players age out, school and work pull others away, and a squad that wins a qualifier in October can look half different by the World Cup. New Zealand have kept theirs together, and that matters more at this level than any single star name. The connections are already built. The corner routines are already set. Nobody’s introducing themselves in the team room.
The test, as always in Oceania hockey, is measuring yourself against Australia, and this group has already passed it once this month. Doing it again on the world stage is harder, obviously. But a settled New Zealand side with a winning habit is nobody’s idea of an easy pool game. Their men’s juniors were named the same week — the Junior Black Sticks men.
