Top Women’s Hockey Teams Draw

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 17

Top Women’s Hockey Teams Draw

Bumpy grounds carrying heavy turf again affected play in Saturday’s round of women’s hockey matches. The state of. the grounds however did little to slow down the matches between Harewood and Carlton and Burnside and Digby’s. These two matches produced good fast hockey but a lot of whistle also. The joint leaders, Rawhiti and University, fought out a draw, while Teachers’ College lost to Aranui. Results:—

Digby’s 2, Burnside 1 Rawhiti 1, University 1 Harewood 2, Carlton 1 Aranui 2, Teachers* College 0.

Points.—Rawhiti and University 24, Digby’s 2, Harewood and Carlton li, BUrnside and Aranui 1, Teachers’ College 0. Burnside v. Digby’s This match looked bright and open from its beginning stages. Both forward lines spread the ball around and attacked convincingly. Digby’s made several sorties deep into Burnside territory before the Burnside goalkeeper, C. Cusdin, committed a major infringementand a pen-

alty bully was given against her.

The bully was won for Digby’s by J. Fookes to put her team ahead. Soon after, the tables were turned and the Digby’s right-back, L. Otten, gave Burnside a chance to equalise from a penalty bully. J. Mouat goaled, to make the half-time score 1-1.

Digby’s continued to press the attack with good short passing moves, but lost several chances when cross-passes from the right wing, B. Turbott, were not picked up. J. Burkett and B. Turbott both had goals disalowed because of the height of their shots. D. McKinnell, at left-back, played a sound game on defence, being quick to the ball and clearing well. Digby’s second goal came when J. Fookes netted from a scramble. J. Mouat was the best of the Burnside forwards. She passed intelligently to her wing and centre and back-tackled tirelessly. The two wings tended to give sticks, which resulted in them getting little chance to run. S. Comer at centre-half, directed the Burnside defence and attack. BUrnside had five penalty corners awarded it in a row, but failed to capitalise at all, the Digby’s defence remaining sure.

Umpires: Mrs M. McGregor and Miss G. Bowyer. Carlton v. Harewood

Harewood looked more of a combination than did Carlton. L. Rutledge, at inside-right, distributed the ball very well. She looked fit and was fast to the ball. Harewodd, with most of the early possession, attacked the Carlton goal, and J. Seebeck at left-wijig, eventually scored. This gave Carlton more incentive, and G. Coull at centre-forward, moved determinedly down centre-field and goaled from straight in front. Harewood then began to show more determination and pressed hard, having several chances to score, from open play and penalty corners, but without result. The Harewood inside trio of L. Rutledge, S. Taylor and L. Baylips continued to look dangerous when in possession, and were beating Carlton’s defence to the loose ball. In the second half, Carlton played to a pattern. Both backs, M. Bruhns and L. Drummond, had shown signs of being flustered earlier, but Bruhns in particular settled down to feed the ball to her right wing, A. Judson, who showed some of her former adeptness at cutting out her defence, but never got the chance to look dangerous in the circle. Drummond had difficulty curbing a strong tendency to fly hit, so that her forwards had little idea where she was going to direct the ball. Both teams became hurried In their roll-ins and free hits, and many times Harewood gained possession from a badlydirected Carlton hit. Play settled to a pattern of Harewood attacking and Carlton repulsing. From a penalty corner, Harewood had several attempts to score before Rutledge finally netted to give Harewood the lead at 2-1. Play then became noticeably dispirited. Players be gan hitting long and hard to gaps, too hard for forwards to pick up. Umpires: Miss G. Bowyer and Miss B. Makinson.

Aranui v. Teachers’ College Aranui looked the superior team by far. but although it had most possession and territorial advantage. Teachers’ College played hard and held Aranui to a 2-0 win. Aranui’s forward line showed better and more constructive combination. W. Stock at inside-right, made some good runs but did not appear dangerous near the goal. S. Cowles was her usual quick and opportune self. None of the College players could match her speed to the ball.

Aranui pushed the attack consistently using the right wing. F. Ormandy, as a spearhead. She was rewarded for her hard runs by two goals, the first a fine effort. It came during a barrage of scoring attempts. The bail came loose to the right where Ormandy was unmarked and goaled with a firm shot. In Aranui’s defence, R, Hurrell played her best game at lefthalf. marking her wing closely. A. Ruston, at centre-half, directed play skilfully. Teachers’ College did not look; its best. The forwards lacked combination and attempted solo 1 runs into a solid defence. J.' Stanford at inside-right, tried valiantly to get her forwards going, but after several attempts, during which she received no support, tended to delay her passes and was too often caught in possession. The College defence strove hard to curtail Aranui’s scoring. The winning margin of only two goals paying tribute to their efforts.

The deep defence was kept very busy. j. Fright showed up well at right-back, and received support from her counterpart, A. Lawrence. J. Mohr, in goal, reacted well to the amount of work she was called on to perform, blocking confidently and kicking strongly. Rawhiti v. University For a match that should have been the best of the day, the standard of play was disappointing. University was weakened by several gaps caused by players on vacation, so that combination was broken. The forwards attacked the Rawhiti goal often enough, but lacked the skill and opportunism of the usual players. There was a noticeable difference in the speed of the forwards to the loose ball. Possession was often lost through misunderstandings between players or lack of speed. A. McKenna, at centre-half, played tirelessly to give her team the edge it needed. She had fine anticipation of the direction play would take and positioned herself accordingly. University trailed 0-1 until J. Wells scored the equalising goal. A. Rouse led Rawhiti from the centre-half position and set a fine example to her young teammates. She made several attempts to goal herself, but failed to score. M. Bennett, the right-wing, followed her captain’s example, and had a fine game. She ran fast and hard and had some hard shots at goal. She passed well across the top of the circle, but her inside forwards failed to take the ball up and gain any scoring attempts. Rawhiti had more chances to score than University, but they failed to use their chances.

Umpires: Miss B. Makinson and Mrs N. Powell.