Soccer youth Strength shown in N.Z. contest

Press, 30 August 1979, Page 14

Soccer youth Strength shown in N.Z. contest

Canterbury’s strength in junior soccer at a national level was further emphasised last week when the under-12 representative team won its national tournament at Devonport in Auckland. On the one fine day, Canterbury beat Waikato, 50, and followed that with a 4-0 win over Nelson. From then on it rained heavily. This caused problems with the fitches and all games were re-arranged so that only two pitches would be used for the remainder of the tournament.

Canterbury then beat Marlborough, 6-0, and, in its closest match to that stage of the competition, beat Auckland, 2-0. Being the only team with maximum points, Canterbury automatically won its way through to the semi-finals where it met Franklin. The scores were level at the end and the match was decided on penalty kicks, Canterbury winning, 4-2. The other semi-final, between Auckland and North City, was won by Auckland, 5-2. In the final Canterbury scored first through Mark Oorschot, who pushed the ball into the net after it had rebounded off the Auckland goal-keeper. Auckland equalised soon afterwards, but the winning goal came from an excellent 25-metre shot by

Neihana Te Aho, which gave Canterbury a 2-1 victory. Tbe Canterbury' goalkeeper, Gary Thompson, had an outstanding tournament. conceding onlyone goal while Peter Hawthorne proved to be an able utility player. Wayne van Dalsum and Peter Olsen were the pick of the forwards while the captain, Jamie Hattaway, won a large share of the possession in the middle of the field. To round off a very successful team, its fullback, Kevin LampenSmith, Simon Nalder. Dean McKay and Kieran George, played highlycompetent soccer throughout the tournament. Ct iterbury has now contested the last three national finals and has won two, in this age group. It has competed in four regional and one national tournament to date this ye. • and has won them all. The regional tournaments, which comprise teams from Oamaru, Timaru, Ashburton and Christchurch, have been contested in the under 11, 12, 14 and 16 age groups. The Fraser Cup for under 15 players, the Whitehead Cup for the under 13 age group and at Blenheim, the under 11 competition for the Roberts Trophy, remain to be contested this year.