University suffers rare hockey loss

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34131, 19 April 1976, Page 17

University suffers rare hockey loss

University suffered only its third loss in four years when Redcliffs beat it 1-0 in the Trans Tours preliminary senior hockey competition on Saturday.

A goal scored by Rob Hardy 12 minutes into the second-half, sealed University’s fate. In spite of 20 minutes of desperate attack. University the club champion for the last nine years — could not salvage the game against a solid Redcliffs defence.

The senior competition is now wide open and University will have a struggle to i win its tenth consecutive j championship, especially (when it loses five players to I the New Zealand Olympic (team later in the season.

i Redcliffs will miss the services of its captain, Tony Ineson, who is a tower of strength to the side at cen-tre-half. and the competition could become very cut-throat during the absence of the Olympic players. ! Harewood-Burnside, which after two rounds, shares the i competitiorr lead with Redjcliffs .will also suffer when ‘the team leaves for Montreal. Its centre-half and captain, and scorer of the winning goal against Hagley Old Boys on Saturday, Alan Chesney, is also in the New Zealand team. High School Old Bovs in its first game of the season scraped to a narrow 2-1 win

against Woolston Working: Men’s Club and Selwyn-! Hillmorton scored the only! goal in its match against Sydenham-Cashmere. Results and scorers were: Redcliffs 1 (R. Hardy),! University 0. Selwyn-Hillmorton 1 (J. Pepper), Svdenham-Cashmere: 0. Harewood-Burnside 1 (A.; Chesney), Hagley Old Boys 0. High School Old Boys 2 (J. Gibson, G. Britiain), Woolston W.M.C. 1 (G. Chalken) I

University has seldom played as poorly as it did on Saturday, and it was only when it was a goal down that it realised the seriousness of the situation and started to play the hockey of which it is capable. “Coihe on. This is an emergency” coaxed the University captain, Selwyn Maister, but try as they might over the last 20 minutes the vital goal eluded the University forwards. Although it dominated possession University lost the advantage because of bad trapping and

poor passing. The mishaps reached epidemic proportions at tile start of the second halt and it was in this period that Redcliffs capitalised. Its fast-breaking forwards! rattled the University defence into errors and it forced several! penalty-corners. Tony Inesonf struck two of these well and it i was only a brilliant goal-line save! by Ewen Holstein which pre vented the first of the two going into the net. But from the third a goalmouth meelee developed and the! bait rebounded to Rob. Hardy’s! stick in front of the goal, and! he pushed the ball into the net. With Ineson marshalling his defence well, and being assisted by the inside-forwards. University found it hard to make progress. The situation improved when Thur Borren was switched to the right-wing in the second half, and the Redcliffs goalie. Peter McCrea, had to make two fine saves. The Redcliffs team all worked hard for the win. while in the University side Selwyn Maister at centre-half was the most consistent in his all-round play. Holstein too was solid. UNIMPRESSIVE GAME Harewood-Burnside and Hagley Old Boys stumbled up and down the field for 65 minutes with both sides reaching the opposition circle a number of times but not having the ability to finish move- ! merits. Harewood was the belter side; though. Its forwards were more' incisive and combined well on attack. lan Hill was again im-. pressive with his dribbling, and Athol Forrest and Wayne See-1 beck also made inroads into the; I Hagley defence. The game seemed destined for a draw but five minutes from! full time Harewood was awarded I a penalty-corner. Chesney trapped the ball on the edge of the circle, beat two players, shaped to hit the ball, but instead pushed it over the heads of the defence and into the net. In the Harewood defence Chesney supported his forwards! well and was paticularly valuable when covering in deep defence. Dick Pettit and lan Steel both played soundly and the former stopped an equalliser on the goal-line with two minutes remaining. Jeff Bailey and Paul Clark, the Hagley 7 wings, were the best forwards, v being constructive in their movements. Peter Cox carried a heavy workload well at centre-half, and Robert Wilson 'at left-back tackled soundly. Struggle to win High School Old Boys had to struggle to beat Woolston Working Men’s Club 2-1. In spite of good work in the mid-field from Geoff Gibson and Alan Patterson, the Old Boys forwards could do nothing coni structive in the circle and their many attacks in the first half came to nothing, with errors being made in the circle. At times in the first half Woolston came close to scoring with some fast breaks that caught the Old Boys defence out of position. There was no score at half-time. In the second-half Old Boys continued to dominate play and after applying strong pressure. finally 7 scored. They followed this up soon after with a second goal with a move that involved the whole forward line. Woolston came to life after this and after- a strong attack down the right flank it scored Old Boys tightened up their defence and Woolston was unable to make any- progress inside the Old Boys’ circle. Old Boys were far from conI vincing in their first game of I the season and will have to develop their goal-scoring potential if they are to succeed this year. Selwyn disappoint Seiwyn-Hillmorton was disappointing in its 1-0 win over Sydenham-Cashmere. In a scoreless first-half neither team could settle down and play constructive hockey 7 and bad passing and trapping ruined many potentially 7 good moves. Both teams relied heavily 7 'on long passes up the middle of the field and the resulting bunching of players made open hockeyimpossible. Selwyn was very weak on attack and did little to press the Sydenham defence. Marty Fitzsimmons played confidently in goal for Sydenham and Selwyn never really looked like scoring., The Sydenham forwards were more aggressive in the first-half and were unlucky not to score on several occasions. The second-half was much the ; same as the first with little good hockey being played, but towards the* end Selwyn began to dominate the play and after much trying, inside-left Jeff Peppermanaged to score. Sydenham was soon on attack again but nanv promising moves were wasted with wild passes and erratic trapping. Selwyn will have to play much setter in future games if it is o do well in a competition that s now wide open after University’s defeat by Redcliffs.

The points table is:— A Pt P W D L F Redcliffs 2 0 0 4 1 4 Hare\vood-B. 2 2 0 0 4 1 4 U Diversity 2 1 0 1 1 1 z Selwvn-H. 2 1 0 1 1 1 Hagley O.B. z 1 0 1 2 2 2 H.S.O.B. 1 1 0 0 z 1 z Woolston z 0 0 2 2 4 0 Sydenham-C. 2 0 0 2 1 4 0 Linwod U. 1 0 0 1 1 3 0 DESERVED WIN