HOCKEY Australian Team’s Tour

Grey River Argus, 1 April 1948, Page 6

HOCKEY Australian Team’s Tour

CHRISTCHURCH, March 31. The touring Australian hockey team will fly to New Zealand, arriving at Auckland on Thursday, July 22, and leaving by air on the return journey on Monday, August 23. inis was announced last evening by Mr W. H. Down, honorary secretary ol the New Zealand Hockey Association, who said that his association had received a cablegram from, the Australian Hockey Association giving the travel dates. The tour will be for live Saturday matches, including one test match, and 11 mid-week matches. The team is considered to be the strongest ever to leave Australia. Mr Down said it was the turn of Christchurch to have a test match against a visiting Australian hockey team, but Dunedin also had special claims, as a centennial interprovincial hockey tournament would be held in Dunedin during the first week of August, as part of the Otago centennial celebrations. A proposal was under consideration to play the test match against. Australia on the concluding day of the centennial tournament, Saturday, August 7. The most likely date fob the Australians’ match in Christchurch was Saturday, August 14. Mr Down added that it was 14 years since an Australian hockey team toured New Zealand, and already much interest was being shown in the visit. There were more applications for matches than it would be possible to include in the itinerary.