Avon men chosen

Press, 11 March 1985, Page 44

Avon men chosen

From

TIM DUNBAR

The national rowing selectors, Fred Strachan, Ivan Sutherland and Peter Baddeley, are obviously keen to send a big team to Belgium for the world championships in Hazewinkel in August-Sep-tember this year. When the national championships ended at Lake Ruataniwha yesterday, they named 34 premier oarsmen to attend the trials at Wanganui from March 22 to 25. In recent years, the number of trialists has not exceeded 25. Although Avon did not win any red-coat titles at the nationals, four club members will still be going to Wanganui, among them Simon Aplin and Neil Gibson, both former New Zealand colts, who have a premier trial for the first time. Aplin put up a good performance with Don Symon

in the championship coxed pairs to finish second behind Waikato and Avon’s coxless pair of Les O’Connell and Gibson took the bronze in their final. As well as naming an eight-oared crew, the selectors are also expected to pick a number of small boat crews to go to Hazewinkel. One of the crews is likely to be a quadruple sculling combination and Messrs Strachan (convener), Sutherland, and Baddeley will have the interesting option of picking top performers as George Keys (Nelson) and David Rodger (Waikato) as scullers or rowers. In the championship singles, they won gold and bronze respectively.

The trialists are:— Premier oarsmen: Warren McLaughlin, Bruce Tonkin (Auckland); Simon Aplin, Neil Gibson, Les O’Connell, Don Symon (Avon); Merv Troughton (Hauraki Plains); George Keys (Nelson); Barrie Mab-

bott, Shane O’Brien, Conrad Robertson, Mike Stanley, Keith Trask, Eric Verdon, (North Shore); Nigel Atherfold, Brett Cooper, Charlie Graham, Allan Horan, Geoff Horan, Bruce Holden, Warren Johnson, David Rodger, Andrew Stephenson, Ross Tong, Chris White, lan Wright (Waikato); Danny Ashby, Brett Beavis, Andrew Bruce, Stuart Henderson, Kevin Lawton, Tony Lawton (West End); Russell Bailey (Wairau); Gary Reid (Whakatane).

Premier coxswains: Andrew Bird (Avon), David Crombie, Andrew Hay (North Shore), Brett Hollister (Waikato).

Lightweight scullers: Kevin Flutey (Awarua), Kevin Horan (Hauraki Plains), Dale Maher, Allan Rowe (North End); Rick McCarthy (North Shore), Greg Manson (Wairau). Women scullers: Robin Clarke, Stephanie Foster (Cambridge); Nikki Payne (Wanganui); Kay Surgenor (Wairau).