Canterbury’s sporting gain

Press, 12 June 1986, Page 40

Canterbury’s sporting gain

By

TIM DUNBAR

Two sports in Canterbury, netball and squash, will gain when Adrianne and Rod Hayes return to the fold after three years in Auckland. Adrianne Hayes (nee Prattley), the former Canterbury netball captain, will arrive back at the week-end to start a new radiography job at Christchurch Hospital. Her husband, Rod, six times the Canterbury squash champion, is committed for a while longer to his teaching position at Nga Tapuwae College in Mangere. He fa trying to get a

teaching job in Christchurch and hopes to be back in his old home town by the August school holidays. Adrianne Hayes was captain of the Canterbury netball team over four seasons and has since played for North Shore, and last year, Auckland. According to Rod Hayes, Adrianne is “in-jury-free and fitter than ever.” Unfortunately the timing of her return means she won’t be playing for any province in the Trusteebank national tournament in Auckland this year. She will irtjss a

place in the Auckland team because of unavailability for practices and the Canterbury team was named last week-end. Wherever he happens to be living when the New Zealand inter-district squash teams’ event is held in Timaru in early September, Rod Hayes will probably end up playing for Auckland again. The deadline for registration was June 1. Hayes returned to teaching in 1984 after being a full-time squash player for two years and representing New Zealand . in the 1983 world championships in Auckland.

He has less time to train for squash now and finds that he “gets pretty tired” after playing a few tournaments in succession. The Canterbury Open in which he was the losing finalist last weekend was his fifth on end and he will take this week off. Hayes failed to make the New Zealand team for last year’s world championships in Egypt and his national ranking slipped from a high of No. 3 to No. 7. He said from Auckland this week that he was capable of being among the best in New

Zealand again. “I still think I can do it if I go full-time, but I don’t have to prove it to myself.” These days Hayes, 29 this month, is involved in more aspects of squash than just playing. He is oh the national referees’ exa : miners panel and took over this year from the late Shane O’Dwyer as director of the international development group. Hayes said that his involvement with the international development group might mean his moving out of the refereeing sphere. A