Craig Burtt at last included in Canty team

Press, 12 July 1980, Page 56

Craig Burtt at last included in Canty team

By

KEVIN TUTTY

Craig Burtt, one of the most reliable defenders in inter-club hockey for the last few years has finally been rewarded with representative honours.

Burtt will join his brother Mark in the Canterbury A team against South Canterbury A at Porritt Park tomorrow. He will play at rightback and Robin Wilson will move forward to right-half to take the place of Greg Pierce, who is in Australia with the New Zealand junior side. The Canterbury A selectorcoach, Cyril Walter, has named only one reserve for the game against South Can-

terbury, Steve Ambler a forward.

The team to play South Canterbury is: Graeme Sligo; Craig Burtt, Ross Ambler; Wilson, Selwyn Maister (captain), Jeff Gibson; George Carnoutsos, Balvant Bhana, Barry Maister, Mark Burtt, Chris Maister, Steve Ambler. Neil Edmundson and Ewan Holstein were not considered because of injury and Warwick Shillito, like Pierce, is in Australia with the junior team.

The 12 players for tomorrow's match, plus Marty Fitzsimons,' will travel to Whangarei and Auckland to play Northland and Auckland on July 26 and 27. Canterbury should beat South Canterbury tomorrow, but the margin might not be as wide as it has been in past years. South Canterbury is an improved side and has benefited from retaining basically the same team for the last three seasons. Three weeks ago it played Wellington B in Christchurch and won, 1-0. South Canterbury will miss

the thrust of Chris Leslie in its forward line. He is in Australia with the national junior team. The responsibility for the attack will fall on Eon McKerchar, Ross Smith and Graeme Stanbury but they will have a difficult task breaking the sturdy Canterbury defence which proved its ability against Wellington three weeks ago. Dave Stuthridge, the former Canterbury goal-keeper, will be guarding the South Canterbury goal, and Canterbury has found in previous years how hard he is to pass. In front of him, Trevor Stanbury and Neville and Laurence

Rawstorn give stability to the South Canterbury defence. The Canterbury forwards are building a combination they hope will regain the team the Challenge Shield at the Newmans-Adidas national tournament in Auckland in September. South Canterbury cannot afford to give them any space to move tomorrow or the score will mount.

Carnoutsos, Bhana, and Mark Burtt are maturing with each representative game. Burtt should be more prominent on attack because he will have no Alan Mclntyre to mark as he did three weeks ago. Barry and Chris Maister rely more on experience than youthful enthusiasm now, but are still extremely dangerous forwards.

Canterbury B will play South Canterbury in an earlier game. The team is: Ross Thompson, Geoff Deakins, Kerry Thomas, Geoff Chalklin, David Clements, Craig Burtt, Dick Pettit, Malcolm Wood, Peter Christensen, Chris Tye, Greg Barrett, Gary Copsey, Steve Barrow, lan Steel.