Top teams feature at park opening

Press, 10 April 1987, Page 27

Top teams feature at park opening

Two feature games have been chosen to entertain guests and spectators at the official opening of the Astrograss surface at Porritt Park on Sunday afternoon. Harewood, the premier men’s champion last year, will play University, the 1985 champion, at 1 p.m. Both teams are liberally sprinkled with present and former New Zealand representatives. The official opening, by the Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay, will be at 2.30 p.m. and a senior women’s match will follow at 3 p.m. It is between Burnside I and Woolston. Burnside I won the women’s championship last year. Both men’s teams like to play attacking hockey and they should provide an entertaining match on a surface sympathetic to their skills. There is an added interest in the match. The respective coaches were formerly coach and pupil. Cyril Walter, the indefatigable University coach, is guiding the maroons again, while Harewood is being coached for the second year by Selwyn Maister, a former member of the University team that won a bagful of senior championships from the late 1960 s through to 1980. Maister was also a permanent member of the Canterbury team

coached by Mr Walter during the same period.

The Harewood team contains five present or past New Zealand players and one New Zealand junior representative. Chris Leslie and David Penfold were on the New Zealand team’s tour of Argentina last month, and Andy Innes, Balvant Bhana and lan Riach have all played for New Zealand. Graeme Edwards, who has moved south from Whangarei, is in the New Zealand juniors this year. Another newcomer to the Harewood squad this year is a sportsman whose name is familiar in another role. Anup Nathu, who opens the batting for the Canterbury cricket team during the summer, is playing at left-half for Harewood.

University has two New Zealand current representatives — Greg Pierce and Mark Tynan — in its defence, and a New Zealand junior, Peter Tynan, in its forward line. Dave Struthridge, is the University goal-keeper. He remains one of the most consistent goal-keepers in New Zealand. The Burnside I women’s team is led by Mary Clinton, the New Zealand captain. She has a competent defence around her, including the Canterbury representatives, Lorraine Rouse. Judith Phillips, one of

the most skilled forwards in New Zealand, and Leanne McFadden are the heart of the attack. The forward line is balanced by three other competent players, Jane Beattie, Jane Earnshaw and Kieran O’Grady. Woolston’s attack might not be as well balanced as Burnside’s but Tracy Sinclair, Sue Duggan and Mary Davie have the ability to pierce any defence, given the room to operate.