THE national women's hockey side equalled the achievements of their male counterparts by beating their Australian Country counterparts in the Oceania Pacific Cup yesterday.
On Tuesday, the men's side used a penalty shoot-out to win 3-1 and yesterday, the women did the same and won by the same margin.
This was the first win for the national women's side over Australia Country since the OPC started in 2008.
The visitors took the lead in the early stages of the match with a field goal to Caitlin Rosser in the fourth minute of play.
A field goal to Ateca Fatufago five minutes from half-time drew the scores level and was how the match remained till full-time as both sides missed many opportunities at goal.
The three goals to one in the penalty shoot-out gave the home side the much needed motivation ahead of their FIH (International Hockey Federation) World League Round 1 final tomorrow.
National coach Shaun Corrie was delighted with the win but said his side would need to step up a notch for the finals.
He said their defence stood tall against the opponents but the finishing would need a bit more touch-ups.
"We defended quite well but we also missed a lot of chances at goal," the former national rep said.
"But the finals will be very tough and we will need to be tactical in our games," he said.
They face Samoa in their finals pool match at 5pm today at the National Hockey Centre and Corrie said he would use the match as a build-up.
"We will use this match to work on the areas that we lacked in or were outplayed in against Australia Country.
"And then we will look towards what we can do in the finals," Corrie said.
Yesterday's results: NZ Maori 4 Australia Country 7 (M), Samoa 0 NZ Maori 6 (W), Australia Country 1 Fiji 3 (penalty strokes) (W), Fiji 17 Vanuatu 2 (M), PNG 5 Vanuatu 1 (W).
Today's games: 9am Australia Country-Vanuatu (W), 11am NZ Maori-Vanuatu (M), 1pm PNG-NZ Maori (W), 3pm Australia Country-PNG (M), 5pm Fiji-Samoa (W).