Accurate shooting feature of senior competition

Press, 19 April 1982, Page 23

Accurate shooting feature of senior competition

Accurate shooting was a feature of the. first round of the senior netball competition on Saturday, in which the Sacred Heart and Teachers’ College A teams, Cashmere, Burnside, and St Nicholas had victories. The fine shooting was best exemplified in the Sacred Heart A v. B match,'in which Eileen Honey and Diana Sullivan missed very few attempted shots, and their A team, predictably, had an impressive win.

In other matches, Teachers' College A overcame a shaky start to eventually beat Riccarton com* fortably. Teachers’ College B was not so lucky and went down to a bustling Cashmere side, while Burnside and St Nicholas both recorded easy wins over Hagley and South Brighton respectively. Sacred Heart A 36, Sacred Heart B 10 With both teams obviously familiar with each other's play, neither was able to establish any superiority in the first half. This was reflected in the low scoring rate. Sacred Heart A leading 12-6 at half-time. However, in the second half the A team quickly asserted itself and went on to take the game quite easily. The attacking pair of Sullivan and Honey proved very efficient. They combined well and shot accurately, giving the B team

defence little opportunity to upset. In contrast, the A defence was extremely tight, picking up many badly-directed passes from the 6 attacks. The B team experienced great difficulty with its centre pass-offs and through-court passes. Leigh Gibbs was invaluable at centre, directing both attack and defence and skilfully linking the two areas into a cohesive unit. The eventual score was indicative of the dominance of the A team in the second half. Teachers College A 31, Riccarton 21

Teachers’ College’s poor for-ward-court work and Riccarton s controlled through-court passing •and accurate shooting all combined to give Riccarton a twopoint lead at half-time. Its Tania Ronald pressurised the Teachers' College attack, resulting in straypasses which Riccarton eagerly snatched up. The Teachers' College defensive trio of Robyn Davenport, Anne Kersley and Jane Eddington worked well. In the second half, this good defence work paid off, enabling College to dictate and dominate play. With plenty of possession the College attackers lifted their games. Leigh Bartlett shot confidently and accurately and took Teachers’ College to its commanding lead. Dianne Nellis shot accurately for Riccarton but increased defensive pressure from Teachers’ College- resulted in fewer scoring opportunities for Riccarton. In the final few moments of the game. Teachers’College was firmly in control. The stray

passes which marred its opening play disappeared, and they began to look a very formidable combination. The’final score was a tribute to the hard work of the Teachers' College defensive trio. Cashmere 34, Teachers’ College B 17 , Cashmere deservedly won this match, capitalising on the great many mistakes of the Teachers' College B attacks. Cashmere started rather unsteadily with the new young goal-shooter, Sandra de Ruiter, taking some time to settle. However. after a few moments she played quite capably, positioning herself well and shooting accur- ' ately. Feeding passes into the circle, especially from Linda Manning and Alison McKenzie, were very accurate and proved difficult for the Teachers’ College defence to counter. Although Teachers' College started well, with swift, confident through-court passing, badly directed forward-court passes robbed it of much-needed goals.

The Cashmere defence capitalised on Teachers' College’s errors, which were quickly turned into Cashmere goals. Oh defence. Margaret Hewinson played a dominant role for Cas’hmere. while Jane Drew, at wing defence, negated many College attacking moves. In centre-court, the Cashmere attacks were very efficient. They moved the ball quickly on attack and defended determinedly in the event of lost possession. The final score reflected Cashmere's energetic play and was an indication of the amount of errors in Teachers' College’s game. Burnside 35. Hagley 21 After a goal-for-goal beginning. Burnside gradually slipped away to a reasonable lead of 1712 at half-time. With Jan Pickering in the trials for the national under-21 side. Leigh Smith played goal attack for Burnside and Adrienne Prattley took the goal shoot position. Both players shot very

accurately and this was a major factor in Burnside's win. At centre. Cecilia Burke was excellent. She worked hard on both attack and defence, feeding well and gaining valuable defensive possession. Carey Patten and Nicki Lay also made useful contributions on defence. The Hagley shooting pair of Genae Hohipuha and Donna Smith utilised the limited amount of possession which came their way. Both shot well and Hohipuha used her excellent feint pass to gain a closer shooting position for Smith. Kathryn de . Ruiter played steadily at goal keep for Hagley. She took some well-timed interceptions and worked hard. St Nicholas 45, South Brighton 21 The score was very close early as St Nicholas took some time to settle. Also. South Brighton began strongly, some swift passing being capped off with accurate shooting by Cheryl Beckham and Kay Jenkins. But as the game proceeded, St Nicholas began to assert its

dominance, and playing its usual lobbing style to great advantage, it never looked in any danger. Anne Davidson combined well with the new St Nicholas goal attack, and both players recorded high goaling averages. Rosalie Doyle worked tirelessly, feeding well and putting in a good defensive effort. She and Lynn McLennan worked well together and instigated some fine attacking movements. The St Nicholas defences were very tight and forced manv errors in the South Brighton attack. Unfortunately, these commendable defensive efforts were slightly marred by the high number of obstructive penalties which were incurred. For South Brighton, the defence worked tirelessly but had no counter for the excellent St Nicholas feeding passes. Jill Barnett was especially good, continually giving South Brighton valuable possession. Unfortunately, this possession was frittered away by inaccurate centre-court passing.’