Inter-county: Hockey side bring ‘best preparation’ yet into Orkney clash
New-look football team eager to win fifth successive title
SHETLAND are a “much better team” than they were when they won in Orkney two years ago, hockey coach Derek Leask says.
The ladies team head to Kirkwall for this weekend’s annual inter-county fixture having won two of the last three encounters, including a historic penalty flicks victory in 2024.
That result ended a 40-plus year wait for the blues to win in Orkney, and Leask believes his side are in a better place now as they seek to make it back-to-back away victories.
“You can never get too confident before playing against Orkney,” he told Shetland News this week.
“Anything can happen playing against them.
“What I will say is we’ve prepared as well as we can do – this is the best preparation we’ve ever had for an inter-county.
“If we play as well as we can do, we know Orkney are going to have to play hell of a well to beat us.”
The two sides meet at the Pickaquoy Centre tomorrow (Saturday) at 12 noon, with the men’s football inter-county following – also at the Pickaquoy – at 3.30pm.
With the Shetland hockey team reversing years of Orkney dominance in the fixture in recent times, Leask believes there is nothing between the two sides now.
“I don’t think there is a gap between the teams at all,” he said. “Each team can beat the other on their day.”
Going forward, he wants the blues to be the dominant side in the county.
“We want to go into each inter-county thinking ‘we are going to win’ instead of ‘we could win this’.
“That’s the aim for the future. Long term, we want to try and dominate the fixture – but that’s a big ambition and that’s with full respect to how good Orkney are.”
Shetland warmed up for the Lady Hamilton Cup match with an intensive training camp in Glasgow earlier this month, along with a testing friendly against a ‘best of the rest’ squad in Brae on Wednesday.
Leask said the team spirit was extremely high after the Glasgow trip, and he was seriously impressed with his side’s attitude to that camp.
“I was really quite proud of them. They were really keen to learn and progress, asking loads of good questions,” he said.
“They soaked up everything, and behaved like a really top team.”
Not just the players took something from the camp. He said that he and fellow coach Brenda Leask learned a lot about how they could improve the team.
“It was a really high level of coaching, so we definitely took on board what was getting taught and were getting some new ideas.
“We looked at different things we could do, and they had some suggestions for things we could improve.”
The Shetland hockey squad for Saturday’s match is as follows: Megan Nicholson, Vicky Wiseman, Megan Hibbert, Catherine Irvine, Laura Nicolson, Rhiannon Inkster-Smith (captain), Eda Leask, Emma Michael, Sarah Williamson, Debbie Young, Aimee Keith, Kayleigh Irvine, Kristan Robertson, Rhea Nicolson, Cara Leask and Sanna Forsyth.
Milne Cup match-up
On the football pitch, Shetland are looking to make it five Milne Cup wins in a row for the first time since 2009.
Temporary coaches Jim Tait and John Thomson have been hamstrung by the loss of nine of last year’s Island Games team, drafting in six previously uncapped players.
Six in line for first caps as Shetland inter-county football squad named
A new-look blues team on the pitch and in the dug-out will face Orkney after a comfortable 2-0 victory on home soil 12 months ago, but having eked out an extra-time win on their last visit to Kirkwall in 2024.
Tait told Shetland News last week that he does not know an awful lot about Orkney’s players, but said he is expecting a tricky test as the reds look to lift the Milne Cup for the first time since 2021.
“We’re expecting it to be a tough game,” he said.
“Orkney will have a robust team, as they always do, but we have good players ourselves.”
Tactically he said Shetland are likely to line up in a 4-3-1-2 or a 4-4-2, adding they were unlikely to go for a three or five man defence.
And he said the pair had been mulling over the final selection picks ahead of the Kirkwall clash a week on Saturday.
“We know roughly what we want to play, but we don’t know about a couple of positions,” he said. “We’ll keep our cards close to our chest.”
A livestream will be available for the Orkney v Shetland hockey match on the Rohallion YouTube channel, with a football stream to follow.
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