Canterbury And Wellington Athletes Renew Rivalries At Rugby Park Today

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 11

Canterbury And Wellington Athletes Renew Rivalries At Rugby Park Today

QLD rivalries will be renewed and new ones made when the leading athletes from Canterbury and Wellington meet at Rugby Park this afternoon for the annual Dorrie Leslie track and field meeting.

This contest—traditionally a close affair—was decided on the last event last year and Canterbury, which has held the trophy for more than a decade, averted defeat by one point. Today Wellington will be without one of its most prominent performers, B. J. Everitt, and its leading sprinter, A. Robinson, and yet Canterbury competitors cannot afford to take their opposition lightly. Competing on their home ground, they must be regarded as strong favourites to retain the trophy but it will be

surprising if there is a great margin in the final points analysis. Everitt's withdrawal takes away much of the glamour from the three miles. Last season he narrowly beat Canterbury 's B. R. Jones and a return match over the same distance promised to be one of the highlights of the meeting for both are vastly improved athletes. Now it seems that Wellington’s S. Kent will provide the only opposition to a run-away victory’ by Jones. Jones has also been chosen for the mile and after last Saturday's record breaking run at 4min s.6sec must be expected to win this also. His strongest competition in this will probably come from his two fellow Canterbury representatives. J. D. Macdonald and B. Smith. The bets Wellington's threemilers, W. Owens, C. Maclachlan and R. Anderson, can hope for is to prevent Canterbury taking full points by splitting the field. Although named as a reserve, Mrs V. I. Young is almost certain to begin her climb back to national prominence today. If she contests the discus and shot it is very likely that she will win both in spite of her 10 months in retirement. The only competitor who could possibly trouble her is anther of Canterbury’s national field events representative, Miss D. Charteris. Canterbury should be able to make a clean sweep in the senior men’s sprint events. The New Zealand sprint champion A. G. Steel, has not yet reached peak form but he should have little difficulty in subduing the Wellington sprinter. R. Burgess, in the 100 yards. D. W. Mackenzie, captain of the Canterbury team, should win the furlong and quarter-mile events with comparative ease. A. Osborne (Wellington) could provide him with reasonable opposition in the quarter, although he will first have to overcome D. Minards and N. Shipley, who have both been running very well this season. Wellington may be able to pick up some valuable points in the women’s sprints. Miss P. Haworth

(Wellington) defeated Canterbury’s Miss L. Hurrell, the national furlong champion, in the 100 yards last year and has a good chance of repeating this today.

She also beat Miss Hurrell in the 220 yards last season, an event she has now given away in favour of the quarter-mile and the 80 metres ■hurdles. Three events, especially when one is a quarter-mile is too much and one of these must suffer. She cannot be expected to beat Mrs M. A. Stephen (Canterbury), New Zealand’s Olympic 800 metres representative, in the quarter-mile and so it is reasonable to assume that her main events will be the 100 yards and 80 metres hurdles.

In the hurdles, her main competition will come from Canterbury’s young allrounder, Miss B. Poulsen, and the Canterbury pentathlon champion, Mrs L. Wilson. Both are excellent performers, an indication that this could be a close race.

Miss J. Wilkins (Wellington), the New Zealand women’s long jump champion, is unlikely to be troubled with Canterbury’s leading performers in her specialist event. She could also do well in the 80 metres hurdles and the high jump. Fresh from his experiences in Australia, M. Walls (Canterbury) is virtually certain to win both the 120 yards and 220 yards hurdles while D. Stevenson (Canterbury) can be expected to take the longer quartermile hurdles event. One event in which there appears to be no certain winner is the senior 880 yards. Last season this was narrowly won by Canterbury’s J. Gordon. He is again racing over this distance today and in spite of his improvement he will have to be at peak form to stay ahead of Wellington’s P. Marks, C. Murray and R. Thomson. Marks, in particular, is now beginning to recapture his best form and promises to thoroughly test the Canterbury champion. Canterbury’s senior men will face a stern challenge in the field events. K. Simpson is still being troubled by an ankle injury and has withdrawri from the triple jump and long jump events, both of which he would have won.

The former Canterbury athlete, R. Ball, appears likely to dominate the shot, discus and javelin events for Wellington. Although his training has eased off since he left Christchurch, he is still a fine all-rounder. With the departure of R. D. Tait to Dunedin there is noone who can offer him a strong challenge in either the shot or the discus.

In the javelin, D. C. Leary will make his presence felt, although he has always been beaten by Ball in major competitions in the past. Wellington has no-one capable of matching Miss S. A. Flynn in the women’s

javelin. The main interest will be in her efforts to increase the Canterbury and national records. During the provincial pentathlon championship last Saturday she was only inches outside the national record.

Of special interest is the return to provincial competition of G. Lawless, of Nelson. He won the New Zealand decathlon championship four times from 1952 to 1955, inclusive, and was national discus title-holder in 1954. Today he will compete in the discus. Wellington’s main strength appears to be in the junior ranks. N. Manderson (Wellington) is a strong candidate for major honours in the junior mile and D. Robertson is a fine prospect for a win in the junior quarter-mile. The Motueka sprinter, F. Silk, could also provide a serious challenge to Canterbury’s top junior sprinters.