Mackay to coach Auckland

Press, 13 February 1986, Page 38

Mackay to coach Auckland

By

FRANK DUGGAN

A former coach of the Canterbury men’s league basketball team, Mr Murray Mackay, has taken over as head coach of the hapless Auckland team which, on Tuesday, lost its two coaches, Steve McKean and Bob South, as well as its sponsor, Dominion Breweries.

The Auckland captain and former Canterbury representative, Stan Hill, will be his assistant. Auckland has been an outstanding contributor since the Countrywide league was introduced in 1981. It won the title in 1982 and 1983 and was runner-up to Exchequer Saints (Wellington) the next two years.

Mr Mackay, now president of the Auckland

Basketball Association, described the withdrawal of the sponsorship as a “bombshell.”

Mr Mackay is now seeking a new sponsor — somebody who is prepared to put up $40,000. “I have had a few inquiries today and there will be further discussions in the next few days,” he said.

“When I transferred to Auckland from Christchurch a couple of years ago the D.B. team was $17,000 in debt,” said Mr Mackay. “Through hard work the association has paid off all these debts, with the exception of one, and that will be settled shortly.” If no sponsorship is forthcoming Mr Mackay sees this season’s Auckland team as a New Zea-

land-born squad. “We will have to work on a shoestring, but we will make it and prove as good as any other team in the league,” he said. The club’s new American signing, Vince Hinshen, will move to Melbourne tomorrow before playing a game for Auckland; he was to have replaced Benny Anthony, who will play for another Auckland club, Ponsonby, this year. Auckland’s other American, Jacques Tuz, who moved from Bowater Nissan Nelson to Auckland at the start of last season, is very much in limbo. “No sponsorship, no Tuz,” was how Mr Mackay described the situation yesterday. Mr Mackay spoke to the

Auckland squad on Tuesday evening and said that there was a determination among the players to play in this year’s league. “The various first and second division teams in Auckland are not usually noted for their loyalties, but the other evening all the players were behind myself and Stan with our plans for the future,” he said.

Hill, something of a legendary figure in New Zealand basketball, was adamant yesterday that he would stick with Auckland.

Asked whether this week’s upheaval in Auckland had given him thoughts of moving elsewhere, particularly Canterbury, the usually- reticent Hill replied: “Do you

think I would be good enough?” Hill joined Auckland from Canterbury five years ago, and except when he moved to Northland for a 12-month coaching spell a couple of years ago, has been the team’s main motivator.

Mr Mackay has had something of a checkered coaching career: he was dismissed as Canterbury coach midway through 1983 when the team was in a slump, and he did not have a happy time with North Shore (Auckland) as an assistant coach. • The executive of the New Zealand Basketball Federation will discuss the Auckland team’s problems at a meeting in Christchurch this weekend.