WOMEN WATER POLO PLAYERS TO TOUR

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33875, 21 June 1975, Page 4

WOMEN WATER POLO PLAYERS TO TOUR

(By

RAY CAIRNS)

Although the New Zealand women’s water polo team is very largely from Auckland, it is believed to be the first national side of its kind in the world.

The team is to make a ,10-day tour of Australia in early September, in the second and third weeks of the school and university holidays. The object of the tour is to provide the mainly young team with international experience. The longer-term objects are the first Pan-Pacific Games in Hawaii next year. The team leaves on September 2 for Sydney and will play several club sides and the New South Wales state team. It will then spend four days in Melbourne, again playing club teams and the Victorian state representatives. Women’s water polo is a relatively new facet of the sport in New Zealand, and although only five of the 15 team members are more than 16 years old. it is not lacking in experience. Two Auckland clubs, University and Avondale, are well represented and both have been active in various tournaments for some years. The team includes two girls from Canterbury. Jane Irwin and Judith Sunbeam, both of Beckenham, and will be led by two wellknown Auckland officials.

Geoff Knights, still an active player and chairman of the Auckland board, is manager, the post he filled with the men's team at the New Zealand Games. The coach is Jack Mazzoleni, who also coached the New Zealand secondary schoolboys’ team last year. Water polo for women has received further encouragement in recent weeks. First, a number of girls attended the Rothman’s coaching clinic in Christchurch and Jane Irwin and Jackie Anink (North Beach) became the first girls in the country to earn gold proficiency awards. Then, after originally being bracketed with the national open and under 21 tournament, the girls’ national championship will be held by itself. It is to be at Whakatane from January 24 to 26 and will be for club teams. However, there will still be an inter-provincial tournament, in the Bank of New South Wales tournament at Naenae during Labour week-end.