July 18, 2025 • 6 mins
The Canterbury Girls U18 team claimed a national title, guided by coach Joe Piggott.
The team did it the hard way, having to survive two penalty shootouts to claim their victory.
Piggot joined Lesley Murdoch for a chat, touching on the stresses that come with coaching a highly competitive —and at times emotional— group of young women.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to Canterbury Hockey and catch up with the
coach of the under eighteen women who a couple of
weekends ago took out the national title this after coming
I think it was eight or in the top eight
last year. But to win the title against very very
good sides and Joe Piggott, who has come through the
Avon club system was the coach of that. Too many
(00:21):
joins our program. Good morning, Oh very well, congratulations. It's
so difficult to win those tournaments. You need lots of
little things to go your way.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, yeah, you do. You definitely need a little bit
of luck. Yeah. We had two shootout when I mean
in some ways you make your own luck because we
had an extremely good goalkeeper, four girls that stepped up
and scored eight from eight as well. But we did
need a few things to go in our favor. We
were able to walk away with the gold medal at
the end of the week, which was super special. We
had two goalkeepers across the week, Caitlyn and Cellar Valentine,
(00:54):
who both did an amazing job, but we went with
Caitlyn for the two shootouts and yeah, she was incredible.
I think from the seven shootouts that she faced across
the quarter In the semi final, she saved four of
the seven, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Oh that is magnificent, and it's a chance to be
a hero, isn't it. Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Absolutely she did. She did extremely well, actually, because in
both scenarios we were leading the games in the fourth quarter,
we conceded a goal to tie the match up with
about sort of four or five minutes to go. Both times,
the goalkeepers is probably a bit of head noise coming
off the backer conceding. She just kind of hit the
(01:35):
reset button, stepped up, and then just dominated in the
shootouts both times.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
One of those shootouts was particularly important, and that's the
quarter final because basically, if you don't win your quarter final,
your dreams are gone of going any further, and that's
often becomes the most important game and you beat the
top gun Auckland side.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It was a pretty big game, and we kind of
knew going into the tournament that the way the seedings worked,
we were always likely to face Auckland or in North Harbor,
which neither would have been easy. The girls played exceptionally
well on that day torrential rain as well, just to
add to the occasion. But yeah, we handled everything well,
(02:15):
and quite a lot of people that watched the game
said it looked and felt like a final and they're
in the duckout. It was the intent. You could feel
the emotions so to get over the line in the
shoot out and like you say, you lose that game
and you you have no hope of metal. Yeah, it
was pretty That was pretty good to get over the
(02:35):
line on that one.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Well, Joe Peggett, tell us a little bit about your
coaching philosophy, because you're clearly showing that you can get
the best out of the players, not only as individuals,
but in a team sense.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I love to keep things positive going into the week.
I made a real effort to focus on what we
were good at. Obviously, within that we we certainly looked
at ways we can be better and sort of focused
on things that we can do to improve. But our
number one priority was what are we good at and
how can we be even better at those things? And
(03:05):
I suppose it was a week of making the girls
believe and like sort of buy into like we are
good hockey players, we are a good team, and let's
just sort of pump each other up. Yeah, it was
a bit of a confidence build and I think that
you could feel that for those that saw us play
like you could see that we had that self belief,
(03:27):
We were super supportive of one another, and just it
was just like a really good team environment to be around,
super supportive, a very united group. I suppose my role
in all of that was just trying to kind of
be the leader of that positivity and just staying calm
when we need a calmness on the bend. You know,
it can be like a national tournaments alone and then
(03:49):
throwing teen age girls as well, it can get quite
emotional and the dugouts at times. But between myself and
Anika who was my assistant coach, we just made sure
that we we cats things come and everyone's sort of
level headed so in the pressure moments they could thrive.
So yeah, it was an epic week.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Well as part of Canterbury Hockey staff, because you are
staff as well, you're the participation and development manager at
Canterbury Hockey. I mean where do you want to take
your your individual coaching too?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, So I mean I'd love to one day be
able to be coaching one of our New Zealand teams,
regardless of the age. Luckily, enough to be part of
the Future Black Sis coaching program at the moment, the
last two three years I've been away. Three years now,
I've been away to the Future Black six camps with
(04:41):
the under eighteens and the under twenty ones. So yeah,
I'd love to sort of in an opportunity one day
to maybe be involved with one of the underwenty one
things that get to go overseas and then wherever that
takes me in the future would be. We'll see where
that goes, but yeah, I'd love to one day could
be able to represent the country as a coach. The
(05:03):
messages coming sort of from Fill with the women and
Greg with the men is like we want to play
fast and we want to play at speed. Like definitely
on the men's side, just sort of sure that over
in the Nation's Cup, like they really were super aggressive
in the way that they wanted to play. So yeah,
I suppose like that's some of the things that I've
(05:25):
been learning from those campses, just like to sort of
take the game on. Another big thing is like to
try and build people that they can make decisions for themselves.
With the kittens, like we really tried to set up
an environment where they could make decisions for themselves, be
put in lots of scenarios where they had to make
(05:47):
the calls the business. The coach isn't there to tell
them what to do all the time. So yeah, there
was a little bit of a post tournament depression going on.
Last week we were able to build. They were such
a fun group of people for bear around. So when
a song comes on the radio, I'm kind of waiting
for the twelve girls in the back of a van
the quiet to start singing. So that was a change.
(06:09):
I don't actually have too much time for rest, and
then I was straight into the set in your Canary
CITR Men's Trials. So now we're starting to select our
teams ready for the Canary Beavers that I'll be coaching
for the home NFC later in September.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Making life memories for people when they are playing something
that they love doing, but they are achieving the goals
that are set out and that is a very very
special time. Joe Piggett, thank you so much for sharing
your story with us, and just congratulations again. It's a
fantastic one and we'll look for your name.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And lights appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Lizzie for more from News Talks' b Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on Irradio
Let's go to Canterbury Hockey and catch up with the
coach of the under eighteen women who a couple of
weekends ago took out the national title this after coming
I think it was eight or in the top eight
last year. But to win the title against very very
good sides and Joe Piggott, who has come through the
Avon club system was the coach of that. Too many
(00:21):
joins our program. Good morning, Oh very well, congratulations. It's
so difficult to win those tournaments. You need lots of
little things to go your way.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, yeah, you do. You definitely need a little bit
of luck. Yeah. We had two shootout when I mean
in some ways you make your own luck because we
had an extremely good goalkeeper, four girls that stepped up
and scored eight from eight as well. But we did
need a few things to go in our favor. We
were able to walk away with the gold medal at
the end of the week, which was super special. We
had two goalkeepers across the week, Caitlyn and Cellar Valentine,
(00:54):
who both did an amazing job, but we went with
Caitlyn for the two shootouts and yeah, she was incredible.
I think from the seven shootouts that she faced across
the quarter In the semi final, she saved four of
the seven, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Oh that is magnificent, and it's a chance to be
a hero, isn't it. Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Absolutely she did. She did extremely well, actually, because in
both scenarios we were leading the games in the fourth quarter,
we conceded a goal to tie the match up with
about sort of four or five minutes to go. Both times,
the goalkeepers is probably a bit of head noise coming
off the backer conceding. She just kind of hit the
(01:35):
reset button, stepped up, and then just dominated in the
shootouts both times.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
One of those shootouts was particularly important, and that's the
quarter final because basically, if you don't win your quarter final,
your dreams are gone of going any further, and that's
often becomes the most important game and you beat the
top gun Auckland side.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It was a pretty big game, and we kind of
knew going into the tournament that the way the seedings worked,
we were always likely to face Auckland or in North Harbor,
which neither would have been easy. The girls played exceptionally
well on that day torrential rain as well, just to
add to the occasion. But yeah, we handled everything well,
(02:15):
and quite a lot of people that watched the game
said it looked and felt like a final and they're
in the duckout. It was the intent. You could feel
the emotions so to get over the line in the
shoot out and like you say, you lose that game
and you you have no hope of metal. Yeah, it
was pretty That was pretty good to get over the
(02:35):
line on that one.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Well, Joe Peggett, tell us a little bit about your
coaching philosophy, because you're clearly showing that you can get
the best out of the players, not only as individuals,
but in a team sense.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I love to keep things positive going into the week.
I made a real effort to focus on what we
were good at. Obviously, within that we we certainly looked
at ways we can be better and sort of focused
on things that we can do to improve. But our
number one priority was what are we good at and
how can we be even better at those things? And
(03:05):
I suppose it was a week of making the girls
believe and like sort of buy into like we are
good hockey players, we are a good team, and let's
just sort of pump each other up. Yeah, it was
a bit of a confidence build and I think that
you could feel that for those that saw us play
like you could see that we had that self belief,
(03:27):
We were super supportive of one another, and just it
was just like a really good team environment to be around,
super supportive, a very united group. I suppose my role
in all of that was just trying to kind of
be the leader of that positivity and just staying calm
when we need a calmness on the bend. You know,
it can be like a national tournaments alone and then
(03:49):
throwing teen age girls as well, it can get quite
emotional and the dugouts at times. But between myself and
Anika who was my assistant coach, we just made sure
that we we cats things come and everyone's sort of
level headed so in the pressure moments they could thrive.
So yeah, it was an epic week.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Well as part of Canterbury Hockey staff, because you are
staff as well, you're the participation and development manager at
Canterbury Hockey. I mean where do you want to take
your your individual coaching too?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, So I mean I'd love to one day be
able to be coaching one of our New Zealand teams,
regardless of the age. Luckily, enough to be part of
the Future Black Sis coaching program at the moment, the
last two three years I've been away. Three years now,
I've been away to the Future Black six camps with
(04:41):
the under eighteens and the under twenty ones. So yeah,
I'd love to sort of in an opportunity one day
to maybe be involved with one of the underwenty one
things that get to go overseas and then wherever that
takes me in the future would be. We'll see where
that goes, but yeah, I'd love to one day could
be able to represent the country as a coach. The
(05:03):
messages coming sort of from Fill with the women and
Greg with the men is like we want to play
fast and we want to play at speed. Like definitely
on the men's side, just sort of sure that over
in the Nation's Cup, like they really were super aggressive
in the way that they wanted to play. So yeah,
I suppose like that's some of the things that I've
(05:25):
been learning from those campses, just like to sort of
take the game on. Another big thing is like to
try and build people that they can make decisions for themselves.
With the kittens, like we really tried to set up
an environment where they could make decisions for themselves, be
put in lots of scenarios where they had to make
(05:47):
the calls the business. The coach isn't there to tell
them what to do all the time. So yeah, there
was a little bit of a post tournament depression going on.
Last week we were able to build. They were such
a fun group of people for bear around. So when
a song comes on the radio, I'm kind of waiting
for the twelve girls in the back of a van
the quiet to start singing. So that was a change.
(06:09):
I don't actually have too much time for rest, and
then I was straight into the set in your Canary
CITR Men's Trials. So now we're starting to select our
teams ready for the Canary Beavers that I'll be coaching
for the home NFC later in September.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Making life memories for people when they are playing something
that they love doing, but they are achieving the goals
that are set out and that is a very very
special time. Joe Piggett, thank you so much for sharing
your story with us, and just congratulations again. It's a
fantastic one and we'll look for your name.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And lights appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Lizzie for more from News Talks' b Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on Irradio
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