Hockey.

Southland Times, Issue 19508, 6 May 1922, Page 10

Hockey.

Emergency.)

(By

The local hockey season will open today (weather permitting), when the Collegiate team will take the field against the Winton team and the Union team will meet the new-formed St. Mary’s team.

It is on the cards that an Australian men’s team will visit New Zealand this year.

The Collegiate Club has been very fortunate in retaining most of last season’s players. The team to take the field today contains very few new players but has undergone some alterations as regards positions. Lady Jellicoe has been elected patroness of the N.Z. Ladies’ Hockey Association. As the Wyndham team was unable to travel to town on Saturday last the friendly match with the Union team had to be postponed. It is unfortunate that this match could not be played as the teams would have been fairly matched and a good game should have resulted. As the first matches of the local fixtures are to be played to-day, the match will probably have to be postponed until the end of the season. Hie Otautau Ladies’ Club has held two well-attended practices already. With the affiliation of the Rosedale and St. Mary’s Clubs, the Association will have four more delegates added to its executive committee. There are now sufficient delegates to make it extremely unlikely that a meeting will have to be adjourned for lack of quorum. Considerable discussion took place at the annual meeting of the N.Z. Ladies’ Hockey Association last week on the question of sending a representative team to Australia, but the proposal (raised from year to year) was finally abandoned owing to the heavy cost. It was, however, decided to make it a recommendation to the incoming committee to arrange for a North v South Island representative match, to be played at Wellington during the season. Endeavours are being made to play an Otago v Southland primary school match this year. It is understood that the Southland Giris’ High School is making enquiries with a similar end in view. I make no apology for returning to the subject of coaching of teams. It is a matter that cannot be too strongly urged on the Association and the clubs for their consideration. Southland, in the last season or two has attained a high position in New Zealand hockey and it behoves it to keep there. It is to be hoped that players who no longer take an active part in club matches will come forward and help. Enthusiasm and a natural aptitude for the game may carry a player through the junior grades but it takes a certain amount of coaching and a knowledge of the rules to get the full benefit of any good qualities a player may possess and to turn out a first grade player. A team which relies on individual effort is at a decided disadvantage when it has to face a team which has learnt the value of combination and which follows out some fixed line of action in its play. “Any system is better than none” is a proverb well known in football circles and it is just as true of hockey.

“Crumbs! We’re into it,” was the emphatic exclamation of an attractive young lady to a fair companion in an early morning one-man car on Tuesday last. Following the tracing of a shapely finger on the sporting page of the Southland Times the writer discovered that the subject of discussion was neither commercial nor military aggressiveness, but referred to the business transacted at a meeting of the Southland Ladies’ Hockey Association and the ejaculation quoted was called forth by the statement that the affiliation of the Rosedale Woollen Mills Club had been agreed to. The obvious recruits to the hooked stick game then went on to discuss ways and means, and, after taking comfort from the fact that the St. Mary’s Club members would also be new to the game, fell to discussing their own club livery—rose and black—as was only to be expected where the fair sex are concerned. The establishment of a new club at the Rosedale Mills will be eagerly welcomed by hockey enthusiasts generally, as the ladies from whose ranks the teams will be selected are of an alert, agile type, who should prove a tower of strength to an Invercargill side. Provided the girls who have adopted pretty and famous colours elect to work under the direction of a resourceful coach, they will soon be heard of to advantage. Members of the club whose headquarters are situated on the outskirts of North Invercargill will be interested to learn that the colours they have adopted were the first carried by the greatest racehorse ever bred in New Zealand, to wit, Carbine. They constituted the racing banner of the late Mr D. O’Brien and were displayed successfully on racecourses from Auckland to Invercargill, and as far away as Sydney and Melbourne.

At a recent meeting of a local club, it was suggested that the Association might well consider the advisability of advertising each week’s fixtures. People who might otherwise attend some of the matches do not know the fixtures, the time of starting, or the playing area, and consequently in many cases don’t care to go along on the off chance. Hockey needs all its supporters and their interest should not be lost for lack of a little consideration on the part of the Association.