New Brighton top Canty club

Press, 1 March 1982, Page 21

New Brighton top Canty club

By

RAY CAIRNS

Its juniors showing the way in remarkable fashion, scoring a huge tally of 138 points, New Brighton yesterday at Taylors Mistake became' the champion Canterbury surf lifesaving club. Where New Brighton had a nail-biting finish to the pennant five years ago, when it won for the first time in 21 years, this time it did not have such a closerun thing. Starting the day with leads of 11 and 21 points over Taylors Mistake and South Brighton, but most significantly 29 points ahead of Waimairi, New Brighton actually outscored all its rivals in the Jim Beam carnival, the traditional “K Day” carnival. Most calculations pointed to a New Brighton victory, and by margins ranging from 20 to 30 points. But things did not look promising when the day opened with New Brighton, for the first time anyone could remember, failing to' finish in the placings in the senior surf relay for the Black and White Cup. Geoff Walker, almost as always, gave victory to Waimairi. when, as he was rapidly closing on South Brighton’s Wayne Campbell, he caught one of the many booming waves of the morning’s events. Campbell was left hopelessly in his wake. But the same kindly waves helped New Brighton redress the balance. With her team, still trailing the powerful Waimairi top squad — though without Melanie Jones — Jenny Harding caught a. great chute which brought her and New Brighton back oh*an equal footing. Lynetie Griffiths finished off the work.

So Waimairi, which looked likely to take both first and second in the women’s relay got only a second, and New. Brighton had its impetus, that being main-, tained by the juniors easily winning their relay. - For the rest of the day, there was nothing much between Waimairi and New Brighton, the vital difference being that New Brighton was scoring well in the events worth heavy points. Indeed, there was surely a lesson for the club when it could point to 31 points in the junior drill events; its winning margin over all was 34. It surely owes a great debt of gratitude to Johanna Watt, its junior instructor, whose enthusiasm was responsible for that great tally. Not, of course, that New Brighton — for so long the last bastion, virtually, of male chauvinism — could forget its women. Though it had to bow to the Waimairi swimming strength. New Brighton still drilled better, all round, than any other women’s club. Those points were vital. There were some bonus results for. Waimairi along the way,

however, and it must have been well pleased with its senior canoe crews taking first and third placings, and Eric Leask finishing second to Walker in the' senior ski championship. Both Waimairi and New Brighton did not have anyone contesting the major placings in the junior ski, and while Waimairi won the junior canoe race, New Brighton kept in contention with its second placing, both clubs being a little fortunate as spills and disqualifications took their toll of the other clubs.

Waimairi still possessed a theoretical chance of victory with the surf races to be swum, but both John Dimick (Taylors Mistake) and Walker, the two previous winners, had to bow to another mighty swim from Chris Ellis (Waikuku Beach). Always a commanding leader, Ellis watched his lead whittled away as Dimick, Walker and David Clarke (North Beach) all came through on the same wave, but Ellis still had enough strength in the wade and run to head off Dimick. Janice Murdoch (Waimairi), as doughty a performer as there is, did Waimairi proud in the women’s surf race, strangely the only one of the three swimming titles that she retained, but Griffiths was right up there again. So only the junior surf race remained; Waimairi had no starters, and the championship was New Brighton’s. But just to underline it, Lachie Marshall completed a historic hat-trick of victories: no other junior in the history of the movement has won as many as three surf race championships. Nigel Ward completed New Brighton’s day with his second placing, clear of Gary Connor (Waikuku Beach), while there was surely a surf champion of the future in fourth place: lan Macdonald, aged 14, in his first season. His father of the same name, a national champion in swimming, water polo and surf lifesaving in the past, also competed in a golden age Taylors Mistake sixman team. He, Dave Bradley, Jim and Barry Turpin, Jock McNaught and Lin Mclntosh had a total age of 256 years, but still drilled under 10 points. The breakdown of points was:— \

Senior: Taylors Mistake 119,

Waimairi 79. South Brighton 52. Waikuku Beach 45. Junior: New Brighton 138, South Brighton 77, Waikuku Beach 45, North Beach 32. Women: Waimairi 76, New Brighton 59, South Brighton 37. Totals.— New Brighton 212, Waimairi 179, South Brighton 166, Taylors Mistake 155, Waikuku Beach 97, North Beach 73, Spencer Park and Sumner, both 20. Abbreviations used in the results are Taylors Mistake (TM), Sumner (S), South Brighton (SB), New Brighton (New B), North Beach (Nth B), Waimairi (W), Spencer Park (SP) and Waikuku Beach (WB). SENIOR Surf relay.— Waimairi A 1. South Brighton A 2, Waikuku Beach 3. Canoe race — Final: Waimairi A 1, North Beach B 2, Waimairi B 3. Boat races.— Race 11: North Beach A 1, Waikuku Beach 2, New Brighton 3. Race 12: Same result. Final points: North Beach A, 134, 1; Waikuku Beach, 91, 2; New Brighton, 54, 3. Ski race.- G. S. Walker (W) 1, E. Leask (W) 2, D. M. Warn (SB) 3. Six-man R and R.— Kesteven Cup: Taylors Mistake A, 4.20, 1; South Brighton A, 8.22. 2; Taylors Mistake B, 9.56, 3; Taylors Mistake V, 11.85, 4. Oldies surf race.— B. J. Ward (SB), 1, K. Lanyon (SB) 2, G. L: Le Cren (TM) 3, T. M. B. McGirr (New B) 4, D. T. Neate (TM) 5, B. Rattray (TM) 6, 0. Snoep (TM) 7, P. J. Carpinter (TM) 8, P. Ringer (TM) 9, E. Leask (W) 10. March past— Taylors Mistake, 20, 1; South Brighton, 26, 2; North Beach. 45, 3. Final points: Taylors Mistake 40, 1; South Brighton, 21, 2; Waimairi, 7, 3. Surf race.— Final: C. W. Ellis (WB) 1, J. W. Dimick (TM) 2, Walker 3, D. R. Clarke (Nth B) 4, S. A. Johnston (W) 5, C. K. Immers (TM) 6, K. G. Bishop (SB) 7, S. A. Ward (New B) 8, R. A. Clark (New B), 9, P. Seal (WB) 10. JUNIOR Surf relay.— New Brighton A 1, South Brighton 2, Waikuku . Beach 3.

Ski race.— Final: P. Fidow (SB) 1, P. Cox (WB) 2, B. T. Todd (S) 3. Boat races.— Race seven:

North Beach A 1. New Brighton 2. Race eight: Waikuku Beach 1, North Beach A 2. Final points: North Beach 77, Waikuku Beach 52, New Brighton, 23. Six-man R and R— Dewar Reel: South Brighton, 10.20, 1; New Brighton, 18.14, 2; Taylors Mistake. 18.84, 3.

Beach flags— Non-champion-ship: J. A. Taylor (New B) 1, S. Rowe (Nth B) 2, B. Cook (Nth B) 3, M. Keane (WB) 4. Novice surf race.— P. Alexander (Nth B) 1, G. Clarke (Nth B) 2, D. Bodger (TM) 3, E. Jones (Nth B) 4. M. Stuart (Nth B) 5, M. McKendry (S) 6. March past— New Brighton, 40, 1; Taylors Mistake, 49, 2. Final points: New Brighton. 37,1; Taylors Mistake, 18, 2; Waikuku Beach, 17. 3.

Surf race— L. J. .Marshall (New B) 1, N. R. W. Ward (New B) 2, G. D. Connor (WB) 3, I. Macdonald (TM) 4, Fidow 5. M. Boks (SB) 7, J. F. Boyce (New B) 8, W. A. Greig (New B) 9, B. Jones (SB) 10.

Canoe race.— Final: Waimairi A 1, New Brighton A 2, South Brighton 3. WOMEN Surf relay.— New Brighton A 1, Waimairi A 2, South Brighton C 3. ' Beach flags.— Non-champion-ship: T. Bradley (TM) 1, A. Wrighton (W) 2, J. Aislaibie (W) 3. Novice surf race.— Bradley 1, D. Allen (New B) 2, A. Ritchie (SB) 3, P. Wright (New B) 4, C. Fbrrest (SB) 5, D. Edwards (SP) 6, D. Leeming (S) 7, K. Walker (SP) 8, D. Mills (SB) 9. March past.— New Brighton, 22, 1; South Brighton, 32, 2; Waimairi A. 37, 3. Final points: New Brighton, 40.1; South Brighton. 21, 2; Waimairi, 17, 3.

Surf race — Final: J. Murdoch (W) 1, L. Griffiths (New B) 2. J. Barker (SB) 3, T. Turnbull (WB) 4, S. Semmens (W) 5, A. McKendry (New B) 6, J. Harding (New B) 7, P; Home (SB) 8, J. Sunbeam (W) 9, G. K. Smeith (W) 10.