More competitors, more competition for surf lifesaving season

Press, 26 November 1982, Page 19

More competitors, more competition for surf lifesaving season

By

RAY CAIRNS

Maybe it is something to do with the glorious summer of 1981-82, and the expectation of a repeat, but most surf lifesaving clubs in Canterbury report increased memberships for the season which starts with the Lion 10 carnival at North Beach on Sunday week. The Waimairi club captain. Steve Johnston, in fact feels that his club can now boast a membership probably exceeded only by Mount Maunganui among New Zealand clubs, and it has 14 six-strong patrols to put out on the beach on week-ends.

Last season, Waimairi was runner-up to New Brighton in the pennant competition, and while Johnston feels that his club does not have the junior strength to aspire higher, it could well be that all clubs are in that position, and Waimairi might surprise. Its women won the Canterbury, South Island and New Zealand club over-all titles last season, and seem set to do so again with only Joanne Le Cren (nee Ray)—pregnant—and Sue Johnston not competing. The Johnstons face a move to’ Wanganui in the new year with Steve Johnston having recently gained an appointment at the collegiate. He could instruct Prince Edward in a thing or two about the surf livesaving movement.

Waimairi will field three six-place teams and seven for the four-place, surely a Canterbury record. “With one more four-place team, we could take out the whole Canterbury final field!” said Johnston. So far as the women’s swimming .events are concerned, Waimairi will be looking keenly to Melanie Jones and Sonia O’Connell, the latter one of the brightest newcomers of last season, but it will probably Ipse Tui McArthur—to an American Field . Scholar-ship-late in the season.

The best of a batch of- a

dozen new juniors, will probably be Stephen Moore, to fill the gaps left by the new seniors such as Grant Forbes, sure to be prominent in the swimming events,, and Michael Mead, with his small craft ability.’Waimairi still expects to field a successful junior taplin team, however, with Geoff Dixon and Lawrence Aislabie developing as malibu board paddlers and Campbell Mclntosh performing better and better in the surf races last season.

Perhaps the best news from Waimairi’s point of view, however, is that it will not lose Geoff Walker at any stage of the season with his forgoing a chance of selection for the New Zealand team.

New Brighton has lost a shade more than it has gained in experience, for the two who have most regularly contested the national interdistricts championships, Jan Pinkerton and Jo Watt, have retired from serious competition. With an eye to success when it becomes the first New Zealand club to attain 75 years, in 1985, New Brighton will be looking to a younger group to uphold its proud women’s six-place record. Andrea McKendry, Lynette Griffiths, Jill Flaus and Debbie Allen will probably form the basis of that team.

Jenny Carpinter (formerly Harding) is overseas for the early part of the season, but Lynn Rowe is back, and those two, Pinkerton and Watt might just be persuaded to put out an “oldies” four-place late in the season. Still on four-man activity, the juniors who won the national title last season against all odds—Lachie Marshall, Joe Boyce, John Taylor s and Chris Hall—are now all seniors and they will be one of two four-man

teams that New Brighton will field this season, as well as a six-man.

There are also likely to be two junior four-man teams, but there is no certainty about a six. Warren Greig is the only survivor of last year’s team, and he can probably look forward to a varied and successful season.

A New Brighton junior with a glittering success record, Paul Rowe, is a possibility to compete as a senior at some stage. He is returning from Australia for the summer.

Two junior acquisitions are Peter and Wayne Wairau and the former, in his final season, should be a swimming success.

South Brighton has not made a large number of gains—by way of contrast, New Brighton has had 18 training for their awards—but one of significance is Ngarita Kahi, with a sound pool swimming career behind her. Added to that, it has Sue Lethaby and Paul Gurr back from their overseas travels, and the latter was always a formidable beach sprinter; and two young fellows have joined their proficient older brothers in the junior ranks: Martin and Antony Beks, and Anthony and Ivan Szrich, as well as Gary Mills, give South Brighton a likely-look-ing group. They will be needed, with the likes of Frank McMaster, Paul Fidow, Bryn Jones and Gary Grimshaw now seniors. South Brighton will also be fielding a competitive canoe crew, instead of the more social squads of recent seasons, and its drill strength looks as good as ever. Its club captain, George Jones, says he will be looking to as many four-man teams as possible, maybe as many as 10.

The greatest pointer to

South Brighton enjoying a more successful season is that it now has virtually no new pavilion worries, with the impressive structure all but completed. And in the other new structure, the Paul Renwick boat, its experienced crew has already made a solid start.

There are some changes at Taylors Mistake, mainly in the coaching field and with one or two serious, if temporary, defections, it might not be this season in which Taylors recaptures its recent old standing.

John Dimick is off to Queensland for a summer; Paul Carpinter is overseas; Simon Davis is recuperating from a knee injury operation and illness; David Conder is still overseas and not expected back for this season; and Ken Jones is doubtful for the full season.

In the coaching field, Barry Turpin has stepped down from the senior A sixman team, after many successful seasons, and is concentrating his attentions on the juniors. Jock McNaught is the new senior coach, while Darryl Neate is turning his amazing range of talents to coaching the women.

In a season of retrenchment, so to speak, considerable interest will focus on lan MacDonald, the bestperformed surf swimmer of the first-season juniors a season ago.

Waikuku Beach is losing a former club captain, Graeme Beaumont, to an Auckland transfer’in mid-season, but on the credit side, it has picked up two top-class swimmers, Grant Gillard and Michael Smith, to add to its existing strength of Chris Ellis, Phillip Seal and a new senior, Simon Wheelans.

Peter Cox, who put together some splendid results on surf ski and board last season, is also now a senipr, but the two top beach events exponents, Karl Gallagher and Matthew Stone, are still juniors, as is that strong belt swimmer, Gary Connor.

Waikuku should be an interesting force in small craft this season, though its senior boat crew will be rather

more social than competitive. It has purchased two new double-skis—Gavin Bonnett and Cox should be worthy competitors on one of them— four new skis and two boards.

North Beach is also paying a little more attention to small craft, fostering this branch of the sport in an effort to field successful taplin teams. Nor is it ignoring drill, with a junior four-man team, if not a six, to be put on the beach.

“We’re not expecting miracles, but we are trying to diversify a little,” said North Beach's president, Dave East. But his club will still lean heavily on the large craft, with two competitive senior boat crews and a determined junior group. One of that team, David Joker, should again be prominent in beach flags, while the Clarke family’s seniors—John, David and Lewis—will link up with the likes of Grant Moore and Rob Lindsay (the latter again paddling a double-ski with Richard Boyle) in the beach relay, in. which it was runner-up nationally in March.

The winner then was Spencer Park, and it will surely retain that title, with all of Tom von Biel, Francis Lawrence, Chris Campbell—at present in Australia with his Shipping Corporation “patroller of the year” prize—and John Freeman contenders again. Lawrence and von Biel especially, will be heartened by the news of the leg problems of Russell. Hamlett, Waipu Cove’s national team beach sprinter and champion. On the sprinting scene,

Spencer Park can also look to Jackie Manger in the women’s events, a marked success last season.

It must be heartening to Spencer Park that it has nippers this season, for the first time, and four new juniors as well, while another significant gain is a former Canterbury belt champion, Brian Honeybone, from Waimairi.

Sumner is quietly building on its gains of recent seasons, with a few more this year, most notably Mark Sullivan, a Canterbury junior representative when he was with North Beach. One who

is still a junior, Brent Todd, should have a successful final season in the grade, especially as he appears to be paying more attention to his swimming than last season, and he will be a formidable iron man competitor.

Sumner had a big batch of new female competitors last season, and now it has Carol Symonds as a coach for them. One of the new Sumner competitors, Jenny Ryan, is expected to perform well in the beach events.

Pegasus is another small club to make an advance this season. It actually had six candidates for the post of club captain, a heartening sign for an often-struggling club.

Its membership has doubled, too—“not a difficult

job, that,” said one of the old hands and president, Angus Watson, this week—and it has, pleasingly, made entries for the first carnival, in the women’s ski race and the various beach events.

It is also looking to field canoe crews later in the season.

The Lion 10 carnival at North Beach—shifted there from Sumner because of unsuitable beach conditions—will be followed by the Hertz carnival at South Brighton on December 19. The first Jim Beam carnival is at New Brighton on January 16; the Lemon and Paeroa carnival is at Waimairi a fortnight later; and the second Jim Beam carnival is the “K Day” carnival at Taylors Mistake on February 13.