Tell us about your football career to date – how did you get in to football?
Betsy Hassett: Football has been my life since I was four. It’s been a great life and has taken me to many places around the world. I’m 19 and currently attending UC Berkeley in California, traveling back and forth to play for New Zealand. I started playing in the tiny tots at Green Bay Titirangi Soccer Club. Having three older brothers to kick a ball round with helped toughen me up.
Rosie White: My big brother used to play when I was very young, about four or five, and I always used to want to be like him, so this lead me to playing football. I played for Western Springs United for 10 years and moved up in the age groups playing with boys until I was 11 or 12. I then started making the Auckland age group teams and was invited to the New Zealand development camps, and started playing in the Western Springs division one team.
Then I started playing in the premier women’s team and continued playing for Auckland age groups until I was invited into a NZ U-17 women’s camp, and my progress with NZ football went from there.
Can you give us an insight in to the life of a Junior Football Fern?
BH: Running after training in the dark, rain and mud is great fun! It’s hard work but with lots of great times along the way. It’s an amazing experience and feeling to play for your country and win. Building up to an event like a World Cup we have pretty extreme training. At the moment we only have one day off. There’s two trainings a day usually and just one when we are lucky.
RW: Building up to the World Cup, this is probably the most work I have ever done in my life, we train every day sometimes twice a day and it involves a lot of running!
On the coaches…
BH: The coaches are always working hard to get the best out of all the players.
RW: My coaches have been some of the biggest influences in my football career so far, having the support of coaches who believe in you is invaluable. Paul Temple has been a part of my life and an influence since I was about 10 years old, always willing to spend that extra time to work on my shooting or fitness. Then Tony Readings and John Herdman are amazing coaches who have had a pretty big influence in the way my football has gone in the last two years.
Who are your role models?
RW: I haven’t ever really had a single role model that motivates me as of such but people like Maia Jackman, Hayley Moorwood and Sarah Ulmer are people I definitely look up to within New Zealand.
How is the team culture?
BH: Most of us have been playing together our whole lives so our team is really close and fun and that is what keeps us all together.
On keeping a life/work balance…
BH: Sometimes we don’t really have a life. Football has pretty much taken over my life. There’s no time for a job and its pretty difficult fitting in study and friends but when there is time for a holiday it’s always outrageously great because it’s not that often.
On the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup…
BH: To prepare for a World Cup is a pretty long and detailed process, we have already begun looking at footage of the teams we are playing in our first three group games, we have started coming up with strategies that are going to work against Sweden, Korea DPR and Brazil. We will take these strategies and formations with us to the World Cup.
What is your reaction to the draw?
BH: We have definitely been drawn into the hardest pool for the U-20 World Cup. I wasn’t too bothered about it though, this means we get to play against the best U-20 players in the world and beat them!
RW: The group we have been given is obviously very tough, but then again any pool you put yourself is going to be hard. I think the challenge is exciting, you’re never going to get an easy game at the World Cup, you’re playing the best in the world.
What are your goals for the tournament?
BH: I want to score in the World Cup and make it to the quarter finals for sure and even further. Our team is more than capable of this and if everyone really wants it then it will happen.
RW: We have set ourselves a minimum target of making it out of the group stages.
How has being a Football Fern influenced you?
BH: Being a Fern has been a long journey and has taken my life in a direction, which I am still following. It has created so many great memories that I will never forget and has let me experience some of the best and worst feelings of my life.
RW: Being a Football Fern or an All White is the biggest honour you can get playing football in New Zealand. It’s not like any other environment I have been in before – people are constantly digging to improve and always wanting to get the best out of each other. Especially being young in the team it’s such a great environment where you’re learning new things all the time.
What do you love about being a Football Fern?
BH: I love playing for my country and winning. I love traveling to different countries with some of my best friends. I love small-sided games.
RW: I love the competitive environment, everyone is there to win and do their best. There’s nothing I love more than playing for my country, I get goose bumps whenever we sing the national anthem.
What things do you find challenging?
BH: Losing. Getting a job. Being injured.
RW: I find it a challenge at times to fit all my life in. It’s hard work, especially when we are intensive phases of training, and the pressure to perform can be a lot. There’s always going to be a challenge but that’s what keeps you going really.
Tell us a bit more about your team – who are the characters?
BH: Flee is the shortest, Claudia is pretty tall, Bambi smells like poo and farts all the time, Greeny can tackle really hard, Nadia spits all the time and is always sick, Hannah Wall gets all the boys, Wilky is pretty fast.
RW: The U-20s are full of jokers, Betsy Hassett is definately the team clown. She’s always giving everyone something to laugh at. Briony Fisher is known for being a bit of a fitness freak – she likes showing off her big guns. Hannah Wall is known for being a bit of a blonde, she always gets a bit of a hard time for some of her funny comments.
What was playing in the U-17 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand like? How do you think the team went?
RW: I think New Zealand did well, we were so close to making it through to the next round, I think it was a great starting point for where we want to go in the future. Winning New Zealand’s first game at a FIFA women’s event is something so special that we will never forget. It was definitely an experience of a lifetime. I never thought I would be playing in a World Cup in front of all my friends and all my family, it was a special experience that reminds me of what we work so hard for.
What have been the highlights of your career?
BH: Scoring against Canada in the 2009 Cyprus Cup and getting to the final of the same tournament in 2010.
RW: The highlights of my career so far have been playing in the U-17 and U-20 Women’s World Cups in 2008 and scoring a couple of hat tricks made the experience that much better. Playing in front of 15,000 screaming Chileans was pretty amazing, especially taking a penalty in that noise.
What has been the lowest point of your career and how did you recover?
RW: The lowest points of my career so far have been when I was injured, at the beginning of 2008. I did my ACL and was told there would be little chance of me being back in time for the U-17 World Cup but it all worked out in the end. I didn’t at one point doubt that I would be back in time and I worked hard every day, getting stronger and doing everything I could to get back in time. Also, conceding an equaliser to England in the last 30 seconds of six minutes of extra time against England in the U-20 World Cup in Chile 2008. It was the wors
t moment of my life.
BH: Breaking my leg and not letting it heal properly and re-breaking it. I’ve just recovered and have been out for over a year in and out of training.
What advice would you give to girls who want to be where you are today?
BH: If you really love it then keep at it and you will get there eventually. Anything is possible if you set your mind to it.
RW: Do everything you can to be the best player you can be, whether it’s an extra training session, watching football on the TV or anything. But make sure that you enjoy what you do and remember what it is that motivates you to keep going every day.
What are your future aspirations?
BH: I want to go play professionally overseas, maybe in Europe. I also want to go to the Olympics in 2012.
RW: To play professionally, play in the Olympics and one day be captain of the Football Ferns.
Story and photo courtesy of NZF Media.
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