COMPETITIONS ALMOST OVER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 23

COMPETITIONS ALMOST OVER

(By "Sticks.")

NEW ZEALAND TEAM RETURNS

Wellington hockey players have hot yet settled down to the hard fast grounds available during the last two weeks, and the competitions are almost over for the season. Competition matches, apart from postponed games, have been set aside today to make way for games with visiting teams from other centres, and the last of the games will be played- next Saturday. At the present time results are doubtful in all grades with the exception of senior B, where Huia A has a good lead. » The manager (Mr. R. Grade) and nine members of the New Zealand team that has mad? a successful tour of Australia returned by the Wanganella on* Wednesday, the other members returning by the Awatea to Auckland The players who arrived at WelUpg' ton looked fit and well, and were well satisfied with the.tour, They have every reason to be satisfied, as they played 22 matches, wow 18, drew 1, and-lost 3. They scored IQ4 goals and had 5 scored against them., '..■>' , .

All grounds used last Saturday were in reasonably'- good order,: but the general standard of play WjSjS not as high as it might have beep. The teams are naturally getting st»Je ; as. the season draws to a close, but the main fault observed was inabilify to settle down to the faster grounds.." The. past season has been a fairly wet one and hard hitting has been essential on most ■ Saturdays, and the players have shown a tendency to keep tp hardhitting tactics. Where teams have settled down to short passing the opposing players have been badly, beaten, mainly because they insisted upon hitting the ball beyond control. The game between ICarori B and Technical in the senior A, division pror vided a surprise, no on§, expecting the students to hold -the Karori team to a draw. Both teams played well and made every minute of the game interesting; they also made the competition much more interesting than it had been by reducing the Karori A score by one point. Karori A now has to play Karori B, and will have to make certain of a win to remain in the competition. At present the Huia team has a lead of one point in the competition, but a "win pv&r Karori A will place Karori B a point in the lead, and Huia will have to secure a defeat against Karori B to win the competition; As -the teams have shown fairly equal, form during the season, the final games must -prove interesting.