Vital bid by Harewood

Press, 28 May 1983, Page 56

Vital bid by Harewood

By KEVIN TUTTY The top of the table clash between Harewood and Selwyn in the Noel Leeming senior men’s hockey championship today, is vital to Harewood’s chances of retaining the Championship Shield. Harewood leads the championship by a point, but it has played a game more than Selwyn, and a loss today will leave it .a point behind and with a formidable task to overhaul Selwyn, which < plays a second game tomorrow. The play of Harewood this season has been below the standard expected of the defending champion. Several times it has . built good leads only to squander

them. Fresh in the memory of the Harewood side will be its loss to Selwyn in the H. W. Smith national inter-club game two weeks ago. Harewood had a 2-0 lead four minutes into the secondhalf, but allowed Selwyn to win 3-2. The teams are evenly matched. Selwyn has played consistently this season, but has relied heavily on George Carnoutsos and Richard Schoeman on attack, now that Mark Burtt is playing in the unaccustomed left-half position. It now has Greg Barrett, a Canterbury representative the defence two years ago, in the backs, which should strengthen a little more.

Harewood has the better forward line with three Canterbury representatives. lan Riach and Chris Leslie cause constant problems on the left-flank. The attack would have better balance though, if David Penfold and Balvant Bhana showed more combination on the right-flank. It would help if Bhana dropped his obsession with overhead passes. The Harewood defence will have to pay more attention to Carnoutsos and Schoeman than it did two weeks ago to give the side a chance for victory. Selwyn has a busy weekend. On Sunday it will play a deferred game against University, another difficult assignment.