Issue #2 April 2008

Young Fern wins Shore to Shore

AUCKLAND - Young Football Ferns (U-17) captain Briony Fisher won the women’s section of the Shore to Shore in Auckland on Sunday.

Fisher finished the 5km course on Auckland's North Shore in 21 minutes and 30 seconds, placing sixth overall from over 8000 runners.

Auckland Football’s Emily Cooper – who has recently replaced Gabrielle Kerdemelidis in the Young Football Ferns squad for Australia later this month – was the third woman overall.

Ten other Young Football Ferns all competed and joined Cooper and Fisher on stage afterwards to talk about the October/November FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand and give out spot prizes to school children.

Head coach Paul Temple – was pleased with his captain and said the performance of all his team showed their conditioning work was beginning to bear fruit.

“Bri winning the women’s race is great, it shows the fitness work is paying off and that this team is athletic and determined.”

“Fitness underpins everything. If you can’t match a team for fitness then it doesn’t matter what your tactics are. If we can run with teams during the World Cup and keep up with the intensity of matches that’s when our tactics can come though.”

Temple's 18 string squad travel across Tasman to Australia to play the Australian U-17s (twice) and the Australian U-20 with the first match on April 15.