Richmond has surprise wins

Press, 3 October 1983, Page 24

Richmond has surprise wins

Two sets of rugby league goalposts were still in evidence at Papanui Domain when the senior A men’s softball season got under way with a series of doubleheaders on Saturday. The games which ushered in the sporting summer, albeit a rather chilly one by late in the day, were most notable for the performance of the unheralded Richmond team.

Doug Baker, making his debut as coach of Richmond, was a happy man after his team came through the day unscathed. First it upset Clarity Press Papanui, 4-3, after trailing 0-3, and then went on to shut out the promoted Imperial Merivale side, 1-0.

The reigning Canterbury club champion, Noel teeming Burnside, started slowly in both matches of its double-header. But it did enough with the bat to record comfortable shut-out wins over both Merivale (60) and Western Suburbs (70). David Workman, back down from Levin for a season with Burnside, had the honour of smashing the first automatic home run of. the season, a huge hit which cleared the left outfield fence by several metres. A.G.C. Finance United was the third team to have two wins out of two. It beat Suburbs, 10-0, in six innings, and then humbled its archrival Papanui, 9-1, in a game which took 105 min to complete. POINTS TABLE

Noel Leeming Burnside 6, Imperial Merivale 0 Merivale, making its debut, performed with great spirit in the field and there were some superb catches in the outfield, notably by Barry Hurst (right field) and Glyn Eades (left field), a former Burnside player. But the Merivale batters were basically unable to handle the pitching of the New Zealand B

representative, Chubb Tangaroa, who picked up 11 strike-outs. After the lead-off batter, Cliff Metcalf, hit on safely in the top of the first innings Merivale had nobody on base until the seventh when Eades cleared the outfield for a twobagger. Burnside went into the match with the bare minimum of nine players and the coach, Mr Arnold Hall, had to put his name on the substitutes list. The side’s new recruit, Kerry Chuck, who formerly played in the North Shore, was still waiting for his transfer to come through.

But the Burnside nine was, nevertheless, an awesome line-up with seven Canterbury representatives last year. It took them until the bottom of the fourth innings to get rolling. Then four runs were produced, two of them through David Workman’s huge home run. Both the other Burnside runs came in the sixth innings when Workman was walked to first base and then John Kottier and Wayne Poore strung together hits. Poore’s hit brought home Workman and Kottier stole home shortly afterwards.

The Merivale pitcher, David Bradbury, a long-time Canterbury representative, threw with fire for the first three innings during which he allowed no hits. But he conceded seven hits in the last three with the best Bumside batting from Jimmy Hall, two out of three. AGC United 10, Western Suburbs 0 Western Suburbs held AGC Finance United to a 0-0 scoreline in the first three innings, but United’s batters got on top in the remaining three frames of the game as Suburbs' pitcher, Mike Lake, tired. At the same time Suburbs’ batters made it to base In the first two innings, but never got around the diamond for the remainder of the game. United took the score to 5-0 by the fifth innings, and in the top of the sixth and final innings, went through the batting order for five more runs. Phil Beecroft contributed to three of those runs when a two-base hit scored Marty Dawson, Neil Stuart, and Maia Toa. Andrew Smith was the only Suburbs’ batter to get a safe hit as Beecroft took six strike-outs. Two walks were also conceded. For Suburbs, Lake took two “K's" and pitched nine safe hits and two walks.

Richmond 4, Clarity Press Papanui 3

Richmond scented victory at the bottom of the third innings when it pulled back a 0-3 deficit to be on equal terms with Papanui. Martin Poppelwell starred for Richmond, popping a homer over the Papanui defensive ring and scoring Michael Timu and Paul Hughes in the process. Papanui had opened the scoring in the top of second innings when Rennie Tai was hit home by Colin Sutherland. The soft footing robbed Sutherland of a homer, and he had to be content with three bases.

Chris Chapman scored Tony and Garry Bishop in the next innings, and Papanui looked set to win.

The realisation that the game could be Richmond’s made the players fiercely competitive in the final innings. Colin Sutherland made first safely with Papanui one down, but Luke Jansen, the substitute runner, was caught stealing, and Dick Dolan taken out on a foul fly. Richmond then took its turn at bat, and the lead-off batter, Grant Wright, struck a three-bagger and was scored by an easy passed ball when Michael Timu was in the batter’s box. For Papanui, Sutherland pitched three hits and a walk for three strike-outs, and for Richmond, Mac Tangaroa, was in good form on the mound, taking nine “K’s” for six hits and one walk. Noel Leeming Bumside 7, Western Suburbs 0 Once again the Burnside batting machine was slow to function smoothly and there was some useful pitching from Michael Lake on the mound for Suburbs. When the batting did start, in the bottom of the fourth innings, there was an element of controversy. The left-outfielder for Suburbs, Derek Wood, caught a towering hit from Roger Hutton leaning right back on the fence. But he lost his balance and toppled over the other side, still clutching the ball. The umpires ruled an automatic home run to Hutton, who also scored in John Daly, but Suburbs players throught the catch should have been valid.

Anyway the result was put beyond doubt a little later. Four runs came in the bottom of the fifth when Daly (one-bagger), Hutton (two-bagger), and Workman (threebagger) strung together hits, and two more in the sixth. The only chance for Suburbs had

come back in the top of the fourth innings when it had a chance to go ahead with runners on first and second base and only one down. But Chubb Tangaroa had other ideas and “fanned” both the next two batters.

The other six innings were totally barren for Suburbs and Tangaroa struck out 13 of the 19 batters he faced during the match. Mike Tyree, the Suburbs short-stop, had the satisfaction of getting the only hit. For Burnside, eight safe hits were collected in the end. Daly and Hutton both had .500 batting averages, but it was the power of Workman’s hitting which impressed the most. Twice he was caught just short of the fence (by Wood and Alex Bennett respectively) and his other turn at bat produced a threebase hit.

Richmond 1, Imperial Merivale 0 The former speedy Canterbury outfielder, Kevin Steel, came out of retirement to play for Richmond and celebrated his return by scoring the only run of the’game in the bottom of the fourth innings. He bunted on safely and eventually crosseed the home plate after an error in the outfield.

Both teams managed four safe hits each, but it was Richmond’s Mac Tangaroa who had' the best figures of the two pitchers. He struck-out nine of the 26 batters he faced. For Richmond safe hits were accumulated by Baker, Steel, Brian Wright, and Michael Timu, while Dave Whittington (2), Shane Vincent, and Ernie Goodhue were successful for Merivale. Whittington had been struckout in both his appearances in the batter's box against Burnside earlier. AGC Finance United 9, Clarity Press Papanui 1 United thoroughly deserved this

big win with some powerful batting, but the Papanui players contributed to their own demise with some shoddy fielding. In one instance a runner, Paul Shannon, was trapped in the “hot box” between second and third base, but was allowed to escape and get all the way home. The United team scored three runs in the top of the second innings, two more in the fifth, one in the sixth, and another three in the seventh.

Some of the batting form it showed was the best for a sesaon or two. In the second innings Dean Couch, Paul McFarlane, and Shannon strung together hits and in the seventh Shannon, Ray Marsh, and Tony Mountford put on a repeat performance wth the last two named Finding the fence. Altogether the United batters took 11 hits off the pitching of Colin Sutherland. Shannon, a fine prospect, impressed the most with three hits out of four, and two of his hits earned him two bases apiece.

Papanui was generally kept in thrall by the pitching of Philip Beecroft, who has improved noticeably since last season. He took nine strike-outs, while giving up four hits and three walks.

The team’s only run came in the bottom of the sixth when United’s Paul McFarlane, who had been dynamic at short-stop, unleashed a throw which cleared the head of first base by a matter of metres, landed in the dug-out, and allowed Chris Chapman to get home. Chapman had made base initially on a safe hit. Maia Toa executed a fine double play for United in the second innings and later Rennie Tai pulled off a similar feat for Papanui to compensate for a not altogeteher happy day.

P W L F A Pt Bumside 2 2 0 13 0 4 Richmond 2 2 0 5 3 4 United 2 2 0 19 1 4 Merivale 2 0 2 0 7 0 Papanui 2 0 2 4 13 0 W. Subs 2 0 2 0 17 0