Softball situation worsens

Press, 14 December 1977, Page 52

Softball situation worsens

Bad news is piling upon bad news for the Canterbury men’s softball coach, Jim Gibson. The latest is that the catcher, Ray Marsh, has broken his thumb and is out for a month. Marsh will thus have to forgo the national inter-pro-vincial tournament at Hamilton later this month as well as the representative match against Wellington at Rugby Park this Sunday. His injury follows hard on the heels of the troubles Mr Gibson faced last week when the Canterbury captain, Nigel Mattison, Vince Daly and Tony Bishop all declared their unavailability. Mr Gibson said that Marsh broke his thumb simply tagging a Hutt Valley player at home in the second match of a double header at Fraser Park last Sunday. “There was no collision, nothing. His bones must be brittle or something.” Three players — Kevin Tuuta, Eric Tomlinson and Paul Hogan — have already been added to the Canterbury squad but Mr Gibson is still looking for another batter to replace Marsh, “if we can.”

He was generally very pleased with the team’s performance on Sunday — it registered its first victory over the Hutt for more than a decade — but concedes that Canterbury will not really know what it is up against until it meets Wellington, the national champion, in four days time.