Canterbury surf challenge

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 36

Canterbury surf challenge

The over-all superiority of Canterbury surf lifesaving conies under threat at Mount Maunganui beach tomorrow morning, and the concerted bid by the South Brighton club to achieve over-all national honours for the first time the day after. It is an intriguing double bid by lifeguards from this region and on the evidence of this season, there seems no reason why both should not succeed. For the first time last year, a true champion district was found by the combing of each of the sectional points tallies. The major disappointment for Canterbury was not that its women should again have to bow to Taranaki, but that the juniors should again, and so narrowly, find victory eluding them. It seems to be a climatic thing that Canterbury juniors should just fail to measure up to those, for example, from Gisborne. But having to battle cooler sea temperatures and sometimes the same in the air, also appears to provide the Canterbury lifeguards with the steel to match their northern counterparts in the open grade. The South Brighton challenge for the Alan Gardiner Trophy, which marks over-all club superiority, is also the key to Canterbury success. While South Brighton lost its way a shade

in the Lion Red Canterbury championships, it recovered all that poise at first St Kilda, then Warrington, in the South Island meeting. South Brighton has strength across the board, in all three grades and in all disciplines.

And another strength of South Brighton is that no one area appeals as so obviously stronger than another. If one has to be pinpointed, it could be in the swimming arena, where the likes of Aaron Davis, Andy Hamilton, Paul Bethell, Lars Humer, Geoff Barry, Jason Power, Lynette Griffiths and Julianne Dalton can expect major successes.

But South Brighton also has major strengths in the beach events

(principally Anthony Dorreen, his fiancee, Lisa Smith, and Leigh Jenkins, and the open and women’s relay teams); surf boat racing, even if the open crew appears to have peaked a shade too early; drill events; and not surprisingly, the all-rounders’ events — iron man and taplin relay. It is in these areas that Humer and John Creighton, James and Adam Worthington, and perhaps Leigh Barker too can expect gratifying results. But that is not to say the rest of Canterbury can resign itself to chasing South Brighton’s gold caps. In some areas, this particularly applies to Waimairi and Taylor’s Mistake. Waimairi is definitely the boom club of the past two seasons. It can still call on the craft skills of Geoff Walker and Kevin Baker, and there has been an Impetus to the efforts of the women, with Jan Bone and Nicky Chambers providing top swimming efforts in those seasons, the driller and ski paddlers performing more than satisfactorily. But the real forward moves have been made in the junior ranks, and while Waimairi might find it difficult to look past the outstanding beach sprinter, Craig Beecroft, and an outstanding canoe crew for

major successes, it has a solid group of craft paddlers who are diversifying all the time. While Taylor’s Mistake seems to have realised, a little late, that it can not look back fondly on old successes, there is no reason why the old champion club can not expect more national titles. It is making a late but probably successful run in its old strength, six-man rescue and resuscitation; Andrew Bell can expect swimming successes in the junior ranks; and there should be bits and pieces in other areas. North Beach will, almost as usual, be looking to boat crews for its medals, and, indeed, the three junior boat crews from Canterbury — North Beach, South Brighton and New Brighton — are so even and competitive that all will be looking for medals. New Brighton’s highly proficient junior swimmer, Glen Schrader, can expect to be challenging for medals as well, given his comparisons with Bell. The Westpac championships start with the inter-districts titles tomorrow. For the next three days the club championships are conducted and a welcome innovation this year is the concentrating of high-profile finals in one central arena on Sunday afternoon.