Aust, basketball team

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32663, 20 July 1971, Page 24

Aust, basketball team

Few could fail to be impressed with the tremendous progress made by members of the New Zealand men’s basketball team in recent weeks, but their chances of defeating Australia in the three-match test series and qualifying for the Munich Olympic Games are still slim. The announcement of the Australian team of 15, which will be coached by a man who was one of Australia’s greatest basketbailers in his time, Mr L. Gaze, has done nothing to raise New Zealand’s hopes. The Australians can boast an average height of slightly more than 6ft 4in. New Zealand’s average height is only 6ft 2)in, and no matter how well it is prepared by its coach (Mr J. Hinton, of Auckland) it will find this lack of extreme height a decided disadvantage. Whether 'this can be counterbalanced

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by speed remains to be seen when the first test is held in Auckland on August 7. There are eight players in the Australian team of 6ft sin or taller. One, R. Longley, a Perth architect who will be making his debut for Australia at 28, is 6ft lOin. He has played for Western Australia and Victoria since 1963. But he is not the only player with his head in “the rarefied atmosphere.”

P. Lynch, a methods study officer from Newcastle, is 6ft 9in and only 22. He too will be making his first appearance for Australia, and is regarded as a player of exceptional promise.

B. Kerle is another giant at 6ft 7in, and he will possibly be the most dangerous of the three biggest men. He represented Australia last season. A Melbourne salesman, he is 25.

The full team, with heights in parentheses, is.— R. Tomlinson (6ft 6in), Kerle (6ft 7in), P. Byrne (6ft 4in), K. Hart (6ft 6in), R. Johnstone (sft Ilin), P. Lynch

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(6ft 9in), I. Watson (6ft), H. Nagy (6ft 3in), R. Duke (6ft), J. Maddock (6ft 2in), P. Petherick (6ft sin), A. Barnet (6ft sin), R. Longley (6ft lOin), T. Kotuniewicz (6ft sin), W. Wyatt (6ft 3in). Six of the players have previously played for Australia — Tomlinson, Kerle, Byrne, Nagy, Duke, and Wyatt. However, Wyatt and Byrne have not worn their national colours since 1968. For Wyatt, at 30 the oldest and most experienced member of the team, selection was the climax to a spectacular comeback. Until this year, he had not played basketball at a level higher than club competition since 1968. A plumber from Melbourne, he first represented Australia in 1960. He was again chosen in 1962, 1964 and finally, 1968.

The most important member of the party which will come to New Zealand for the vital test series is the coach, Mr Gaze. He coached the Melbourne Church club which won the Australian club

championship this season and the one before. But it is as a player that he is best known. He has represented Australia continuously since 1960, and this will be the first Australian team for a decade in which he has not been selected as a player. No finer or more respected person could have been found to guide this team in battle against New Zealand. Originally supremely confident of success, the Australians are now probably for the first time taking the test series against New Zealand seriously. They are aware of the great efforts being made to raise the standard of the New Zealand team and now appreciate the folly of taking the forthcoming encounters too lightly. The prize for the victory is a place in, the Munich Olympic Games, and to the Australians defeat by New Zealand is unthinkable. The second test will be held at Rotorua on August 11 and the final one in Christchurch on August 14.