CANTERBURY LEADING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27274, 28 December 1949, Page 7

CANTERBURY LEADING

WATER POLO CHAMPIONSHIP TWO POINTS AHEAD OF OTAGO PA WELLINGTON. Dec. 27. With only three games to be played, Canterbury has a two-point lead in the New Zealand water polo championship tournament, being played at Lower Hutt. The championship will be decided by tomorrow morning’s games. The championship points at the end of the second day’s play, with only three games left, were:—Canterbury 8, Otago and Auckland 6, Waikato and Wellington 2. Today’s results were:— Auckland, 10, Taranaki 1. Otago 13, Wellington 5. •Canterbury 10, Waikato 3. Auckland 8, Wellington 1. Otago 12, Waikato 3. Canterbury 16, Taranaki 2. Tomorrow morning’s games are:— Wellington-Canterbury, Waikato-Tara-naki, and Auckland-Otago. OTAGO STRIKING FORM Special Correspondent WELLINGTON, Dec. 27. Profiting by their defeat at the hands of Canterbury last night, the Otago water polo team struck their best form of the national championships this morning. They beat Wellington by the good margin of 13 goals to 5. The members of the team kept their positions well and their combination was excellent. Some of the clever passing movements were a delight to watch. One of these movements gave them their first goal after Wellington had scored when the game was hardly under way. Though well marked by their opponents, Otago pushed the score up steadily to five by half time and to 10 before Wellington again goaled. First Otago and then Wellington had two consecutive goals, a single by each team in the same order making up the final score. Combined moves were a feature of the play, though several good goals came from praiseworthy solo efforts. Otago were in possession in the goal mouth when the whistle sounded. The good combination which has been a feature of the best of Otago’s play again served them well in their evening match against . Waikato. There were very few occasions when the ball was passed by an Otago player that it did not find the right man waiting for it, and frequently he had seen to it that he had plenty of open water in which to manoeuvre or gain ground. The only notable weakness rof Otago’s play was some erratic shooting—the score might have been higher than it was. The half time score was 5 to 2, Waikato's two goals having followed in succession on Otago’s opening pair. Following a sixth Otago goal shortly after the resumption, Waikato took advantage of a faulty Otago throw to score again. After that the Otago score mounted steadily and at the final whistle, as at half time, Otago were in possession and on attack.