Hard job ahead, says water polo rep.

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32568, 30 March 1971, Page 28

Hard job ahead, says water polo rep.

“I thought I knew a fair bit about water polo. But when I went to Australia, I realised you’re always finding out something else about the game.”

This was the comment of T. M. McGirr, a Canterbury national under 23, and New Zealand representative, who returned to Christchurch on Sunday. He was greeted with the news that he had been invited to participate in winter trials for the New Zealand team to play Australia in an Olympic Games elimination match.

Pleased with his selection, McGirr said New Zealand

faced an extremely difficult task to beat Australia. “We can’t pick a young team; we just have to have the experienced guys,” he said. “They play a grappling game over there, and young fellow* just would not know what had hit them. “Also, Australia has tremendous depth; we are unlucky in this respect.” NOT FORLORN HOPE But McGirr was not too pessimistic of New Zealand’s chances of success. “We are in the same category as North Korea was in the 1966 (soccer) World Cup,” he said. “They went out, and ran and ran—into the quarter-finals, at 100 to one. Our team will just have to swim, and swim—just like the American team at the last Olympics, who were always nowhere, and got up to fifth.”

McGirr was also very firmly of the opinion that if New Zealand became eligible to compete in Munich, I. L. Gunthorp, last year’s national captain, and D, G. Cleverly, both at present in England, should be brought into the team.

"They are getting all that experience in England, and it should be used,” he said. The strength of water polo in Australia was reflected in a match played by the New South Wales colts, unbeaten in New Zealand against senior opposition, against Balmain before the tour. It lost 8-2 but the Balmain first team included seven New South Wales representatives. IN SECOND TEAM McGirr himself played mainly in the club’s second team, because there was a policy of not changing the first team. Also, he said, he was sacrificed a lot in his team—marking an outstanding player in the opposition to get him out .of the water —and this did not help his chances of promotion. However, he did play six games for the first team, and in the New South Wales trials.

The strength of that particular club, which also has three Australian representatives, is such that two members of the New South Wales colts side, J. Faison and T. Jansen, were playing in the third team, and another, R. Semmens, was in the second team. A fourth colts representative, J. Waddington, was in the first team. Just more than a week ago, McGirr scored two goals for Balmain in its 4-3 victory in the final of the Sydney Metropolitan second grade grand final. And now, after the hardest six months of sport he has had, he will be staying in training for the winter trials. Next season, he will resume playing for Wharenui.