Mediocre Standard In Women's Hockey

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30233, 11 September 1963, Page 13

Mediocre Standard In Women's Hockey

fTHE 1963 women's hockey season is not likely to be remembered as one of advancement in the senior competition. The standard of play was very mediocre in most cases and only in occasional games, such as some involving University, Carlton, Harewood and Aranui, was a reasonable standard of skilful hockey attained. , The winning team, Rawhiti, owed its success to what can be broadly termed quickness; quickness of tackling and of recovery and also the fact that this team crowded the circle when its goal was being threatened and made a clean shot very difficult. These proved successful tactics but did not make for very enjoyable watching. It is a surprising faeture of Rawhiti’s play that it won the competition and was undefeated, although the best forward, J. Hayes (right-wing), was sadly neglected in a number of the games. The best of the defenders —and a very alert attacker also—was the lefthalf, A. Rouse, who was rewarded with selection for the Canterbury K Cup team. University, the champion team for the previous two seasons, was something of an enigma. It started the season poorly with two unconvincing draws but then proceeded to give some fine displays and was unlucky not to win the first match with Rawhiti. It suffered its first loss in 31 games when it met Carlton in the second half of the competition in a game that was probably the best of the season and although not regaining its best form, was too much for the other teams, except Rawhiti, to whom it lost, and Aranui (a nil-all draw). If nothing else. University can take pride in the fact that it provided the outstanding player in the local season in the centre-half, S. M. Comer. She was more heavily marked than any other player but this did not stop her controlling a match m an amazing fashion. In a rather gloomy

season, she stood out above everyone else. Harewood was a scratchy side. It did not have the striking power in the forward line to make the scoring of goals simple, nor the inside-forwards with the ability to feed Canterbury's best right-wing, D. Eddy, but it struggled on in the face of adversity to finish third. With a better coordinated attack, it could have been a stronger challenger to the other leading teams.

After these three teams, which were separated by 2j points, another three sorted themselves out as being very much on a level. Carlton, Aranui and Digbys finished within a point of each other. In the two matches between Aranui and Carlton each team had a win and the same applied in the matches between Digbys and Carlton. Aranui drew one match with Digbys and lost the other. All of these teams had their patches of excellence but were inconsistent Digbys and Carlton only managed to draw with the lowly Hinemoa on one occasion yet showed quite contradictory form with Digbys holding Rawhiti to a draw and Carlton beating and drawing with University. In its two matches against University, Carlton showed form that stamped it as the team that could be the best in the competition—but that impression was never really fulfilled. Although it appeared at the start of the season that the teams would be fairly even, this was not borne out at the bottom where Hinemoa and West Old Girls were out of their dep’h These teams will no doubt improve and even during the recent season, they—and Hinemoa especiallyshowed they were capable of upsetting and holding their stronger opponents. However, at the present time, the standard would improve if the number of senior teams was reduced to six.