SKIPPER Mel Clewlow feels Canterbury Ladies have finally fulfilled their potential with their victory in hockey’s Super Cup.

Canterbury emerged triumphant from the round robin tournament at Guildford after beating Ipswich and Leicester and drawing with Chelmsford.

They will now represent England next May in Europe’s leading tournament, the European Club Championship, at a venue to be decided.

Canterbury went into the event having picked up just two points from their three rivals during the regular league season, but Clewlow believes that they hit form at just the right time.

The long-serving skipper said: "Possibly our win might surprise some people and I don’t think we can believe it ourselves at the moment, but as I said to the girls this weekend, we’ve played to our potential.

"All season I’ve felt we had the strongest team on paper, and now we’ve proved it.

"We had the best defensive record during the league season and the best defensive record over the weekend. We were also the only team not to lose."

Clewlow admitted that she had some sympathy for league and cup winners Leicester, who were relegated to a place in the Cup Winners’ Cup by Canterbury’s success.

She added: "I’ve got a lot of respect and sympathy for Leicester because they are a fantastic side.

"They’ve been the most consistent team all season, as their record shows, but this was about coming good for three matches and that’s what we’ve done.

"At the start of the season our goals were to get back into the Premier Division indoors and to return to Europe, and we’ve done both.

"Winning the HA Cup at Polo Farm in 2003 was obviously very special but the European Club Championships is the event we’ve wanted to get into because it will put us up against all the big guns."

Clewlow admitted that the team were driven on by comments from people who claimed they would not prosper without coach Danny Kerry. And she also paid tribute to his successor, Paul Bundy.

Clewlow said: "I’m chuffed to bits for Paul. He had some big shoes to fill but he was never afraid to say he needed help, and credit to him for that."

Ladies chairman Sally Hayes described qualifying for the European Club Championship as the "pinnacle" of the club’s achievements.

She said: "Just when you think things can’t get any better, they do.

"This is the pinnacle, the icing on the cake, and the girls fully deserve it. They’ve worked so hard and have looked so sharp in the last few weeks."