Black Sticks Women in 2026: how an island nation fights its way back to the top

In the closing stages of the decisive match in Darwin, September 2025, Grace O'Hanlon stood in her goal with a fresh hamstring tear while Australia surged forward wave after wave. The Hockeyroos had the territorial dominance, but the goalkeeper held firm, and at the other end captain Olivia Shannon had hammered home a reverse-stick rocket from the edge of the circle in the 49th minute. When it came down to nerves in the shoot-out, New Zealand scored all of its attempts and O'Hanlon stopped one. With that the Oceania Cup was won and, more importantly, the ticket to the 2026 World Cup was secured. It was the first series win over Australia in years, for a team that the year before had missed Paris and then had to absorb a multi-million-dollar budget cut.

This dossier portrays the Vantage Black Sticks Women on their way to that World Cup in the Netherlands and Belgium. It shows how a remote island nation without a strong domestic competition holds its own in the global top ten, not despite but thanks to the fact that it sends its best players out into the world and brings diaspora talent back home. About the tactics of dogged defending and cool counter-attacking, about the players who carry the story, and about the question of what this generation can achieve at a World Cup that brings it back to the land of its finest achievement ever.

World ranking and qualification

On the FIH world ranking, New Zealand belongs to the global top ten; the current position and points total are shown below. The gap to the top three, with the Netherlands, Argentina and host nation Belgium, is considerable. Far more pressing is the pressure from below: India sits just above the team and the United States just below, each time only a few dozen points apart. For a team in this zone every test series and every major tournament counts, because a place in the top ten here is not a possession but a constant struggle.

Qualification for the World Cup came along the toughest imaginable route. New Zealand qualified as champion of Oceania, by beating rival Australia in a best-of-three in Darwin. Before that, the team had at the start of 2025 in Santiago won the FIH Nations Cup for the first time, in the final against Ireland, once again after shoot-outs. Two titles in one year, after a period in which victories had been scarce.

That place in the upper-middle tier has everything to do with the continental reality. In Oceania the contest is in effect a trans-Tasman duel: only Australia and New Zealand reach the level that matters, and the continental title always goes between those two. It means that the Black Sticks, unlike European or Asian teams, hardly ever face heavy continental clashes to sharpen themselves. Once per cycle there is the Hockeyroos, and for the rest they have to seek out the world's best wherever it can be found, far from home.

All World Cup appearances of the Black Sticks Women

New Zealand missed the World Cups of 1994 (Dublin) and 2006 (Madrid). Nine appearances therefore since the debut in 1983, with as a constant a place in the broader upper-middle tier and as the standout the distant past.

The big tournaments

A world title is not on the honours list, nor is an Olympic or World Cup medal. The fourth place at the 1986 World Cup in Amsterdam remains the highest World Cup point, which gives the 2026 World Cup in that same Netherlands a special charge. At the Olympic Games the team twice reached fourth place, in London 2012 and in Rio 2016, both times falling short in the battle for bronze. The bronze medal at the 2011 Champions Trophy was the only medal at that level.

The real crown jewel lies at the Commonwealth Games. In 2018 on the Gold Coast New Zealand took gold for the first time, after earlier silver in Delhi 2010 and bronze in 1998, 2006 and 2014. It is telling that the greatest triumph of New Zealand women's hockey stands on that podium and not at the World Cup or the Games: close to the top, but just not above it, is the through-line of this history.

Recent editions

The last two World Cups capture the inconsistency. In London 2018 the team went out early and finished eleventh, a setback. In 2022, with matches in Terrassa and Amstelveen, New Zealand recovered to a fifth place. Then came the hardest blow: missing the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the end of a long run of consecutive appearances, with consequences that reached far beyond the field.

Who is Phil Burrows

Phil Burrows is no stranger to New Zealand hockey. As a player he became the most-capped Black Stick ever, with 343 internationals and 151 goals, both national records, and he played for years of club hockey in the Dutch Hoofdklasse. When he was appointed as the women's head coach in December 2022, he brought that attacking background with him, plus six years of coaching experience in Australia at Hockey Club Melbourne.

Philosophy

Burrows consistently describes the current side as young and in development, and at the World Cup draw he put it that the team is inexperienced in some areas but that the enthusiasm and the bond between the players give confidence. He inherited a team in transition. He succeeded the Irishman Graham Shaw, who had stepped down unexpectedly eight months earlier after the quarter-final exit at Tokyo 2020 and returned to Ireland. Before that there was the long era of Mark Hager, head coach from 2009 to 2018, under whom New Zealand grew into a physically strong, defensively disciplined side that brought the two Olympic fourth places and the 2018 Commonwealth gold within reach. Burrows builds on that physical base, but adds the ball security he saw up close in the Netherlands.

The missed road to Paris 2024 and the legacy

Missing out on Paris 2024 was the pivotal moment of this cycle. It cost the team not only the Olympic podium, but also set off a financial chain reaction that redrew the entire programme. Burrows' brief thus became twofold: build a young team and do so with considerably fewer resources. The way the Black Sticks responded to that, with two tournament wins in 2025, forms the core of his still-young legacy.

Oceania Cup 2025 and Nations Cup: the last final tournament

New Zealand's continental final tournament is the Oceania Cup, and the 2025 edition in Darwin immediately delivered World Cup qualification. In the opening test Australia had a clear territorial dominance, but New Zealand won 1-0 thanks to a save-after-save display from O'Hanlon and Shannon's reverse-rocket. Australia levelled the series, after which the decider went to the Black Sticks in the shoot-out following a 1-1 draw. Earlier that year the Nations Cup had already been won in Santiago, with Holly Pearson the standout in the final.

FIH Pro League: no participation

Unlike many of its rivals, New Zealand does not play in the FIH Pro League. The team withdrew after 2024, not for sporting but for financial reasons: participation costs around 750,000 dollars per team, and that figure proved unaffordable after the budget cuts. The absence of that platform means the Black Sticks structurally play far fewer matches against the world's top teams than their rivals, a disadvantage they try to offset with one-off test series and invitational tournaments.

The preparation for the World Cup therefore ran along a patchwork of tournaments. In January 2026 there was the Summer of Hockey in Dunedin against Japan and the United States among others, in April and May the Changzhou Invitational in China, where the team finished fourth after a 1-0 defeat to China A in the third-place play-off. The most important benchmark comes in June 2026, when New Zealand hosts the FIH Nations Cup in Auckland, with India, Japan and the United States among others, just before the departure for Europe.

The staff under Burrows

Head coach Phil Burrows is supported by assistant coach Aaron Ford, while Denise Leggat guides the team as manager. The technical staff has been further expanded in 2026, although the roles shift along with the decentralised set-up of the programme. Above the team sits the high-performance leadership of Hockey New Zealand, the federation charting a new course after the funding blow.

Training group June 2026 (Nations Cup Auckland)

The most recent official selection is the twenty-strong group for the Nations Cup in Auckland. The definitive eighteen-player World Cup squad will only follow in July. Caps are the latest available figure (largely as of September 2025) and will still rise heading into the World Cup.

Five key players

Olivia Shannon has been the captain and the beating heart of the attack since 2025. Born in the Hawke's Bay, shaped in the decentralised set-up, she plays club hockey in the Dutch Hoofdklasse at Hurley in Amsterdam. Her signature is the reverse-stick shot from the edge of the circle, the strike that decided the opening test against Australia. NZ Sportswire described her as one of the best players in the world.

Grace O'Hanlon is the certainty at the back. The goalkeeper, born in Queensland and having crossed the Tasman in 2016, was in 2025 voted the first New Zealander ever to be FIH Goalkeeper of the Year. She is the only player in the group with more than a hundred internationals and the specialist in shoot-outs. About her own mindset in penalty series she simply said she is highly experienced in them, and her saves were literally decisive in 2025.

Hannah Cotter is the young goalscorer. Born in Hastings, raised in Napier, she made her debut in 2023 and grew into a reliable finisher with powerful reverse-stick shots. She plays in the Hockey India League and at HC Melbourne, and her sister Kaitlin is also part of the squad.

Josephine Murray embodies the diaspora story of this team. Born in Christchurch, raised in Amsterdam, she won a junior world title with the Netherlands in 2021 before choosing the country of her birth. On her debut she immediately provided the assist for Shannon's winning goal. Burrows praises how she reads the game and keeps it simple, and she plays club hockey at Pinoké.

Hannah Gravenall is the other side of that same story. Born in Melbourne to a New Zealand mother, she played under Burrows at HC Melbourne before choosing the Black Sticks in 2023. At 37 she is the veteran of the midfield and a regular finisher on the worked penalty corner variations.

Competition analysis by line

The Burrows system

New Zealand's tactical identity is, in practice, surprisingly level-headed. Where outsiders like to project an aggressive pressing system, the matches show something else: a side that defends doggedly and compactly, that dares to leave possession to the opponent, and that strikes coolly on the turnover. Against Australia in Darwin the opponent had the territorial advantage, but the Black Sticks won by being lethal once on the counter. The same signature was already visible at Tokyo 2020, when New Zealand, with defensive resilience and clinical finishing, beat second-seeded Argentina 3-0. It is an identity of patience and efficiency, not of overwhelming.

The goalkeeping battle

The foundation of that system is the goalkeeper. O'Hanlon saved 25 shots over three tests in Darwin, twice earning Player of the Match, and all while playing with a torn hamstring. Her positioning at shoot-outs, forcing attackers onto their backhand and shrinking the shooting angle, is a weapon in itself. The flip side is the thin depth: behind O'Hanlon stand Julia Gluyas and inexperienced backup goalkeepers, and at 33 the side is heavily dependent on her fitness.

The penalty corner weapon

At the penalty corner both a strength and a weakness show themselves. New Zealand has no dominant drag flick specialist in the modern sense, no player who, like Gorzelany or Janssen, fires the ball home from eleven metres. Instead the side works out elaborate variations, as against Japan, when a laid-back ball and a sweep across goal let Hannah Gravenall tap in at the near post. That is creative, but less productive than a reliable flick, and it touches on the broader vulnerability of this side.

The weakness

The honest balance is that New Zealand defends well but struggles to finish. Co-captain Megan Hull put it aptly after the lost 2022 Commonwealth semi-final: it comes down to being more clinical at penalty corners and in the circle, but they defended like trojans and once it comes down to shoot-outs it can be anyone's day. That pattern carried on into 2026, when in Changzhou the side created enough chances but was too unproductive. With the thin player base and the absence of Pro League matches, this means the Black Sticks rarely have the margin to survive an off day against the genuine top. An early goal against can leave them paralysed, as the 0-3 and 0-3 defeats to the United States in July 2025 showed, two months before the triumph in Darwin.

Australia: the neighbour always one step ahead

The arch-rival is Australia, and the relationship is that of a little sister who usually comes off worst. The series win in Darwin in 2025 was therefore a remarkable breakthrough: a 2-1 series victory over fifth-seeded Australia, which gave the side a mental foundation heading into the World Cup.

Argentina: flair against physicality

With Argentina, New Zealand has a special history: it is the side that can smother South American flair. The 3-0 win at Tokyo 2020, against second-seeded Las Leonas, with goals from Hope Ralph, Kelsey Smith and Holly Pearson, remains the textbook example. With physical pressure and a closed defence, New Zealand disrupts the patient build-up play of sides like Argentina.

Belgium: the host in Pool C

The first opponent at the World Cup is host nation Belgium, a side in the global top five that plays before a full and noisy house at home in Wavre. Burrows called the opening match a real test right away, and its result will probably set the tone for the entire pool.

Spain and Ireland: the direct competitors

In Pool C, Spain and Ireland are the sides against which second place must be secured. Spain sits close to New Zealand in the rankings and is an evenly matched opponent. Ireland is the side that New Zealand beat on shoot-outs in the Nations Cup final in early 2025, even though it had in fact lost to the Irish in the pool stage of that same tournament. A defeat against precisely this opponent would therefore hurt all the more.

Key players per rival

• Australia: forward Courtney Schonell, defender Alice Arnott (whose shoot-out O'Hanlon stopped in Darwin), and the experience of Brooke Peris.
• Argentina: goalkeeper and veterans around Las Leonas, with playmakers such as María José Granatto.
• Belgium: captain Charlotte Englebert and the creative engine of the Red Panthers.
• Ireland: captain Katie Mullan, who equalised in the Nations Cup final, and goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran.

This side's mentality is best understood from what came before it. Missing out on Paris 2024 cut deep. Grace O'Hanlon, who had to watch the Games from the other side of the world, later said that she felt that failure very deeply. What came after was not resignation but a proud response. After the Oceania title Shannon put it like this: the World Cup is so important to them, they did not make Paris, and that very series showed the fighting spirit and the resilience that had grown out of that loss.

It is the mentality of a small nation punching above its weight, and fully aware of it. The side consists largely of young, inexperienced players: after the Nations Cup win, tournament player Holly Pearson said that it was very special for such a young group to win. That togetherness, the idea of a small club against the world, is the engine. It chimes with the broader New Zealand sporting culture around the black shirt and the silver fern, in which resilience and the collective come before individual stars, even though this side has in O'Hanlon a world-class goalkeeper.

At the same time, that mentality is woven into the unusual lives of these players. In the decentralised model they live scattered and play a lot overseas, and Shannon describes how that actually makes her stronger: being able to live close to family in Hawke's Bay while playing overseas at a high level fills her up mentally, and that makes her a better player. It is a side that draws its strength from dispersal, and that gathers itself anew as a unit around the tournaments that matter.

More than a team

Hockey is a minority sport in New Zealand, living in the shadow of rugby, netball and cricket, but with a loyal following spread across the country. Women's hockey has a long tradition there: the first international match of New Zealand women, in 1914 against a touring English team, was at once the first international team sport for women in the country, and right up to the First World War hockey was the most popular women's sport, before netball took over that role in the 1930s.

In recent years that hockey landscape has been radically rebuilt, forced by money. After missing out on Paris 2024, the sport had to absorb the heaviest funding blow of all New Zealand sports. Core funding fell from 1.75 to 1.5 million dollars a year, and on top of that the government scrapped all direct player allowances and support services for team sports, together worth 1.44 million dollars. Combined, a reduction of 1.69 million, or according to the federation some thirty to forty percent of the programme. For the whole hockey programme it meant a drop from 2.9 to 1.5 million dollars a year.

The club system

Hockey New Zealand's answer was radical: the central high-performance base in Auckland was given up, and in its place came a decentralised model in which players train in their own region, supported by a new domestic Premier Hockey League with provincial franchises such as the Central Falcons, Northern Tridents and Southern Alpiners. The idea is that players can lead a more sustainable life, with work or study alongside their sport, and that the competition lifts the domestic level.

An international outlook

But the real engine of New Zealand women's hockey lies beyond the country's borders. The squad is a patchwork of players sent out into the world and of diaspora talent brought back home. Olivia Shannon plays at Hurley in Amsterdam, Kaitlin Cotter at Holcombe in England, Hannah Gravenall at HC Melbourne in Australia, and several players moved to the Hockey India League. At the same time the programme brings back talent shaped elsewhere: goalkeeper O'Hanlon came from Australia, midfielder Gravenall has an Australian upbringing with a New Zealand mother, and playmaker Josephine Murray was shaped in Amsterdam. What was made explicit on the men's side in 2025 applies just as much to the women: captain Nic Woods explained that he works part-time in Germany in order to be able to train professionally, a chance he would not get in New Zealand. The export is not a leak but a strategy.

All of that makes the World Cup 2026 the great benchmark of the year, all the more because hockey is not on the programme of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. There is no title to defend, no second chance. For a sport that fights for every dollar and every chance to play, this one tournament is where everything comes together.

The venues

New Zealand plays this World Cup as a visitor, without home advantage, and that immediately marks the difference with hosts the Netherlands and Belgium. All pool matches of Pool C are played at the Belfius Hockey Arena in Wavre, in Belgium, where the Black Sticks therefore play their entire first phase. Only on advancing does the stage possibly shift to Amstelveen, for the later phases. It is a strange but fitting symbolism: the team that experienced its finest World Cup ever in Amsterdam, in 1986, returns to the Netherlands and Belgium, this time through the back door of a pool in Wavre.

Pool C and the tournament format

In Pool C New Zealand meets host nation Belgium, Spain and Ireland. The tournament format counts sixteen nations, divided over four pools of four. The best two per pool advance to a second group phase, in which the number ones and twos of pools B and C together form a new group. The top two of that qualify for the semi-finals and the fight for the medals, while the numbers three and four of each pool play on for the places nine to sixteen. For New Zealand this means that second place in Pool C, behind the expected Belgium, is the realistic goal in order to stay in the race for the top eight.

What makes this World Cup special

The most favourable scenario begins with a win over Ireland and avoiding dropping points against Spain, so that New Zealand advances as runner-up behind Belgium. In the second group phase teams from Pool B would then probably await, such as Argentina, Germany or the United States, a tough route in which a semi-final place would already be an achievement of great stature. The middle scenario is that the team survives the pool but founders in that second phase, with a final ranking around seventh or eighth place, in line with 2014 and 2022. The unfavourable scenario is an early exit: defeats against both Belgium and Spain, a third or fourth place in the pool, and the classification for the places nine to sixteen, a repeat of London 2018.

1. Grace O'Hanlon at shoot-outs and penalties. Watch the goalkeeper the moment it comes down to a shoot-out. She forces attackers onto their backhand and makes the angle extremely small, and her first save often sets the tone. In Darwin her stop on Alice Arnott's attempt was enough for the title. New Zealand won both the Nations Cup and the Oceania Cup in 2025 via shoot-outs.

2. The counter against the run of play. The Black Sticks' most dangerous moment often comes precisely when the opponent dominates. Watch the transition right after a save by O'Hanlon: against Australia that produced the winning 1-0 against the run of territorial superiority.

3. Olivia Shannon's reverse stick. The captain's signature is a reverse-stick rocket from the top of the circle. In the 49th minute against Australia precisely that shot decided the match. Follow her movements at the edge of the circle.

4. Hannah Gravenall on the penalty corner variation. New Zealand does not play a straightforward drag flick but worked-out variations. At the penalty corner watch for the laid-back ball and the sweep across goal, where Gravenall lurks at the near post to tap in.

5. The opening match against Belgium as a gauge. Burrows called the duel with the host straight away a real test. The result of that first match probably colours the entire pool, and gives the best indication of what this team can handle at this World Cup.

6. Josephine Murray's tempo and simplicity. Watch the Amsterdam-shaped playmaker. Burrows praises how she reads the game and keeps it simple, and on her debut she immediately set up the winning goal. She is the connecting link that launches the counters.

7. Inconsistency as a warning. This same team lost 0-3 and 0-3 to the United States two months before the Oceania title. A reliable gauge of the day's form is how New Zealand gets through the first ten minutes: if the clean sheet holds, confidence grows.

8. The diaspora backbone. Look at the players shaped elsewhere: goalkeeper O'Hanlon from Australia, Gravenall with her Australian upbringing, Murray from the Netherlands. This team has literally gone around the world and come back home, and that international schooling is visible in their play.

9. Defending like Trojans. The core of New Zealand's game is a compact, disciplined defence that dares to give away the upper hand. Watch the distances between players at the back and the patience with which the team waits for the one chance that counts. It is exactly that patience that in Darwin produced the 1-0 against a dominant Australia.

10. The Cotter sisters and the reverse-stick finishing. Hannah and Kaitlin Cotter are both part of the squad, a family story within the team. Watch above all Hannah, the young forward with powerful reverse-stick shots who in 2025 drilled home the winning goal in the Nations Cup final against Ireland. She is the kind of finisher that New Zealand needs to overcome its recurring finishing problem.

Three scenarios are taking shape for the women's final on Saturday 29 August at the Wagener Stadium in Amstelveen, a final that for New Zealand is more dream than expectation. In the best case the team springs a surprise, survives the second group phase and matches its distant World Cup highlight of 1986. More realistic is a place in the broader midfield, around seventh or eighth, with a team that shows it is in the mix despite everything. And in the worst case comes an early exit against Belgium and Spain, with the classification for the lower places as a sobering outcome. A defeat against pool rival Ireland, the team they beat on shoot-outs in the 2025 Nations Cup final, would be the most painful of all.

However it ends, this World Cup says something bigger about where this team stands. The Black Sticks Women return to the country where they played their finest World Cup in 1986, with a team that sends its talent out into the world and brings diaspora players back, and that despite a sacrificed training base and a multimillion budget cut remains in the top ten. They probably won't win a world title, and perhaps no medal. But the fact that a remote island nation without a Pro League and with a thinned-out budget is here at all, against teams that have everything they lack, is the story in itself. It is hockey as the art of survival, and nowhere does that come together more sharply than in Wavre and Amstelveen in August 2026.

Official sources

• International Hockey Federation (FIH), for the world ranking, World Cup draw, qualification and the FIH Goalkeeper of the Year.
• Hockey New Zealand and the team platform Vantage Black Sticks, for squads, staff, results and funding news.
• Oceania Hockey Federation, for the continental context.
• Olympics.com and hockey.nl, for the World Cup format, the pools and the schedule.
• Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, for the history and culture of New Zealand hockey.

New Zealand media

• RNZ, for the funding cuts, the Pro League withdrawal and match reports.
• Newsroom, for the profile of Grace O'Hanlon and the World Cup qualification.
• 1News, for the Oceania Cup, the debut of Josephine Murray and the Europe model.
• Otago Daily Times, for selection and match news and player interviews.
• NZ Herald and Stuff, for historical and current coverage.