The inaugural Women’s South Island Championship (WSIC) commences this weekend with the competition bringing together the top two teams from the Football South Premiership and the Mainland Premiership. The Dunedin City Royals, Roslyn Wakari, Coastal Spirit SAS and Cashmere Technical will compete over three rounds with the top two contesting a Final and the bottom two playing off for 3^rd and 4^th.

The league has been developed to provide high quality fixtures between the two Federations at the end of the regular regional seasons, with games being played on Sunday’s, where possible, with the two double header rounds having 11am and 1pm kick-offs. 

Round 1 is the ‘derby round’, while the following weekend will see the two Christchurch teams travelling south for Round 2 at Logan Park – 24 July with the reverse happening for Round 3 at English Park – 31 July with the Finals to be played on 7 August. 

The opening Round see’s the Royals hosting Roslyn at midday on Saturday with Coastal facing Technical on Sunday at 1pm at St Albans Park and if teams wish to contest the Grand Final a win will be vital.

The Royals were unbeaten in their league contested of 12 rounds with Roslyn finishing on 25 points with the champions having two solid wins, 5 – 0 and 4 – 0, with the sides also meeting in Round 2 of the Kate Sheppard with Roslyn going down 2 – 0.

Coastal also had a perfect season in their league, winning all their games, including three wins over Technical, 4 – 2, 7 – 1 and then 1 – 0 with all three games keenly contested with the final games seeing the only goal coming in the closing minutes. Technical needed a late penalty to knock Coastal out of the KS Cup 1 – 0 . Coastal will be missing several regular first team players, with Jayda Stewart, currently playing for Samoa in OFC Women’s Nations Cup, with Stewart scoring in the open game of the Tournament, Samoa’s 2 – 0 win over Tonga, with another five players - Ellena Firth, Rebecca Lake, Frankie Morrow, Britney-Lee Nicholson and Sam Whyte in Portugal with the NZ University Futsal team contesting World University Championships, so this may tip the game in favour of Technical.