The Wooden Spoon Again

A Tragedy in Five Acts

Let's face it. The plain fact of the matter is that we can't play basketball, or swimming, or even tennis, and we haven't been able to do all three together for a considerable time. Worse, our prospects seem to be as murky as our record. It is not easy to say why Vic. is so weak at most Easter sports. Do we lack facilities? or zeal? or tradition? or a Student Union building? or organization? or all of these? Our winter performances are in general very much better. But the morose conclusion forced upon us is that apart from cricket, and perhaps rowing, we just cannot (or did not) field a team of anything like the required standard. Having Massey to help us increases our shame, but is obviously not being effective in results.

The only constructive suggestion it seems possible to offer is that members of the appropriate sporting clubs get (i) 100% more Tournament conscious. We should hear of nothing in the caf. but better jumps, better swims, tricky new combinations, etc., for three weeks or so before the event; we should make more of team membership, and Tournament in general should loom large in our consciousness. As things are, one could easily complete a degree at Victoria without ever learning that Tournaments are hold. Clubs should also get (ii) organized and into training at the soonest possible moment. Even that is too late; what needs doing is the impossible—perhaps a squad of "possible" meeting before the term begins.

"Salient", following a tradition longer than my memory, has repeated the annual What-a-good-team-we've-got-at-last-hooray-success-is-ours forecast, and is now obliged to make the Oh-well-the-other-teams-were-stronger-than-we-thought-or-we-didn't-live-up-to-ex-pectations-which-is-a-pity apology cum excuse which the result chart requires. This is a foolish procedure, and I hope future editors writing of future Tournaments will be more restrained in their expectations (and of course more jubilant in their report).

The N.Z.U.S.A. Council and the N.Z.U.S. Press Council met in Christchurch during Tournament, and from all appearances enjoyed successful, if lengthy sessions. We record our pleasure at the election of two Victoria men, Bernie Galvin and Con Bollinger, to the presidencies of these respective bodies.

It is a hard matter to decide just how important sporting success is at a sporting tournament like this, and doubtless one's view is jaundiced by our outstanding lack of it; but this reporter failed to find a single Vic. representative (including himself) whose weekend was in any way spoiled by it, and the gusto and success (every bit up to OU's) with which our people talked, drank, laughed, danced, sang, and walked home along the river, made winning daylight performances almost irrelevant. Anyway, the colour of an athlete's singlet should not detract from the spectators' enjoyment in watching a fine performance, so when not actually competing the team should have enjoyed the days also.

The Tournament, per se, was an unqualified success. The weather was good, the organisation was good, and students met each other in sport, conference, and socially, in a way that fulfilled the Tournament's proper function to an eminently satisfactory degree. Tournaments are, in the opinion of this reporter, a Good Thing, so let us continue to take part in them with enthusiasm, spirit, and be it hoped, a success on the field to equal that achieved in the non-competitive sphere.

Finally, "Salient" wishes to emphatically deny the rumour that at the next N.Z.U.S.A. meeting the Constitution is being amended to read . . . "and VUW shall be holders of the Wooden Spoon".

Australian Athletes

The less said about the recent visit of the Australian athletes to Wellington the better. They put on a display here that was worth while seeing despite a very strong wind at Hataitai Park. But the university athletes, with the possible exception of R. Irwin, were in hopeless condition, especially the first runner of the day, Walkey, the 880 man for Victoria.

"Never have so many been so unfit for so long:"

"Swimming Down the Drain"

Once again Vic. had a nominally good Polo team, but once again it failed miserably at Tournament—Why? The team had only three weeks together before tournament and though good individually did not make a good, well-knit team. (In the seven men we had three Freshers and two non-Wellingtonians, because our "A" team throughout the summer was unable to make the trip). That our men were good is borne out in the selection of the North Island team. Auckland, the eventual winners of the Water Polo had four members of this team to out three (Terry Richmond—a reserve for the N.Z.U. team also; Theo Verhoeven and Conor Mc-Bride). Auckland and Canterbury had by far the best teams, each with seven men who had played together all summer. Graham Leach (N.Z.U. Polo captain and only N.Z.U. Polo Blue) and Keith Boswell stood out for Auckland, while Ian MacDonald and Findlay McKenzie stood out for Canterbury. The best game of Polo at Tournament was on Monday morning when Auckland met and beat Canterbury 5-4 in a hard but clean and tactical battle of brain and brawn. Our scores were v. Canterbury, lost 11-1; v. Auckland, lost 12-0; v. Otago, lost 5-3; and South Island won 6-4 against North Island. In the swimming all our competitors qualified for their finals, though not many were placed. Peter Hatch, our star swimmer, went down with 'flu on the Saturday and so was unable to swim again. Bill McCarroll was unlucky to be beaten for first place in the dive and Don Paviour-Smith could only make a third in the hotly contested backstroke. Diana Page was third in the women's dive but our best effort was put up by Stan Paris (Palm. Nth.), who was fourth in the 440, second one! in the 220, and third in the medley, all in excellent times. Fourth places (no points, of course)—well, Vic. had plenty—nine of them in fact. Let's hope they improve for Auckland next year.

In the women's events Otago dominated, Lindley Orbell ('57 and '58 N.Z.U. Blue) won three events and Otago girls were second in two and third in the other. The remaining women's events had Otago girls first and second except the dive which was won by Janet Spooner, of Canterbury.

Men—well the outstanding effort was undoubtedly Aucklander Graham Leach's record breaking butterfly swim (66.4s. for 100). Graham has been an N.Z.U. Blue for swimming and polo at the three Tournaments he has attended (1956, '57 and '58). Ian MacDonald, the Canterbury swimmer and N.Z.U. Blue, won the 100 and 200 breast-stroke and the medley in addition to playing five games of water polo in the two days. Other N.Z.U. Blues went to Fred Strange, of Otago, and Otto Snoep, of Canterbury.

There were fewer N.Z.U. Blues this year as the longer 55 yd.) pool makes the standards harder to reach (the standards were the same as last year's for the 33 yd. pool).

Overall a good swimming competition marred by some irresponsible spectators at the finals—though, of coins, as usual the incidents were exaggerated by the daily Press.

—C.P.

Tournament Cricket

Due to a particularly fine team effort backed up by the intelligent captaincy of Jim Thomson, Vic. scored a comfortable win in the cricket section of Tournament. After beating Auckland in a match at Kelburn Park, the team then beat Canterbury at Christchurch for the tournament title. The batting, which had been suspected to be brittle, showed steadiness, with everyone getting some runs and the bowling, with Campbell, Haskell and Thomson forming a dependable nucleus, was always strong. A big improvement in the fielding over that shown during the season also helped the team maintain its superiority over its opponents. Five members of the team, Thomson (capt.), Haskell, Coutts, Campbell, and Gibson were selected for the New Zealand University XI after the conclusion of the Tournament matches.

Results of the matches were:—

v. Auckland:

Batting first on a stiff wicket, Victoria found runs hard to get against a steady attack and it was not until after lunch when Thomson and Poulton put on some quick runs that the initiative passed to the batting side. The innings closed at 214 runs. Auckland lost 8 wickets for 113 in the period to stumps, due mainly to the fine bowling by Campbell and Haskell. In the second day Auckland managed to carry their first innings total to 130, giving Vic. a first innings lead of 84.

Vic.'s second innings was declared closed with a total of 249, for the loss of 5 wickets, Haskell's performance was particularly notable, in that he scored 50 in 13 minutes of play, and his innings included nine sixes. Auckland, needing 334 to win, collapsed in their second innings, and were all out for 117.

v. Canterbury:

Batting first, V.U.W. scored 142 against a very, accurate spin attack. As a result of some particularly fine aggressive bowling by Campbell, supported by Haskell and Thomson, Canterbury were bowled out for 98 in" their first innings. In their second innings, Vic. scored 166.

Canterbury then had only two hours in which to make 211, and in that time only managed 156 for seven wickets.

Athletics

Although Victoria remained in its customery position at the bottom of the scale, there were encouraging indications that the standard is improving here, the number of place-getters having been greatly increased over last year's. Vic's place-getters were, in the men's events, R. Irwin, second in 440 yards; P. Joyce, first in 3 miles and second in 1 mile; M. Ulyatt, third in 120 yards hurdles; L. Saugagu, second in javelin throw; F. F. Duncan, first in discus; and D. Usher, second in the long jump. In the women's events Cherry Pointon was third in the shot put and the 4 x 110 yards relay team was also, placed third.

P. Joyce, F. Duncan and R. Irwin were selected for the N.Z.U. team for the test against the visiting Australians. All performed creditably and Irwin won a blue for his part in breaking the New Zealand record by three seconds in the 4 x 440 yards relay.

Rowing

Victoria's high hopes for Tournament success in rowing were not entirely fulfilled as we had no wins, but, since we were only able to start in three races, two seconds was a creditable performance.

The regatta, held at Corsair Baiy in Lyttelton, was marred by continual delays. The eights race, scheduled for 8.40 a.m., did not start until well after 9 a.m., then, after two false starts, had to be further postponed. The water at this stage was too rough even for fours. Later on it calmed sufficiently for the fours and doubles to be rowed, although still rough in the middle part of the course. Both men's fours and double sculls were won by Lincoln. V.U.W.'s four, partly composed of members of the eight, was ineligible and after going into second place at the start of the double sculls, an unfortunate misunderstanding with the umpire resulted in their finishing last. In the women's fours the Victoria and Auckland crews soon drew away from the inexperienced Canterbury crew, with Vic. in the lead for the first quarter mile. Then the fitter Auckland crew drew ahead and finished with a lead of about two lengths.

The eights race was finally rowed at 4 p.m. and was most exciting, with a fight at the finish between Canterbury and Auckland for third place not far behind the two leading crews. After taking the lead at first Victoria was gradually overtaken by the strong Otago crew, but finished well with barely a length of clear water between the boats. Shortly after this race an N.Z.U. eight was selected to row against the Canterbury Provincial Colts Crew, and Victoria was gratified to find three of their members included, with P. Preston-Thomas chosen to stroke the eight. Others in the N.Z.U. eight were: Macdonald (O.U.), H. Calder (A.U.), Irwin (O.U.), Hurring (O.U.), Stokes (C.U.), M. Winter (V.U.W.), and F. Crotty (C.U.W.).

Greatest success for the V.U.W. team came, however on Tuesday night when N.Z.U. Blues were announced. Only four were rewarded for rowing, but of these three were received by Vic. representatives: M. Winter, P. Preston-Thomas, and F. Crotty; only one went to A.U.: C. Hurring. This was an outstanding success, particularly compared with our achievements in other sports.

After their three years' trial women rowers knew that their status in Tournament would be decided this Easter. It was: women's rowing is not yet admitted as an official part of Tournament. This decision was due almost entirely to the opposition of Otago University, who are understandably reluctant to admit, and thus give points to, a sport in which they feel they have good reasons for not participating. But it is surprising that other Universities, in one of which this sport is flourishing, should feel compelled to vote against women's rowing because Otago won't countenance it—that they can was shown by their producing two crews last year. After three years' trial this sport has shown no signs of dying in the other universities, although acceptance had to be fought for. However, nothing daunted, women rowers decided to make renewed efforts to strengthen their sport and overcome Otago's opposition; fortunately the nevt two Easter Tournaments will be held in Auckland and Wellington, so a race for the women will almost certainly be held, although unofficial competition outside the university is also increasing, so opportunities will remain for races during the season.

Basketball

It is unfortunate that owing to lack of practice and insufficient time playing as a team, the basketball team must again report a failure at Tournament. However, despite the adverse scores the games were most enjoyable and except, perhaps, for the game against Auckland, we managed to keep our team play going reasonably well. In the first game on Saturday, against Canterbury, the play was very even in the first half and the half-time score was 5-5. Unfortunately our team tired quickly in the second half and Canterbury soon drew away, making the final score 8-16. The game against Otago was also a good one, despite the fact that it was clear from the start that Otago had the better team. Good work in our defence third often kept the ball away from the Otago forwards and the final score in this game was 5-15. On Monday the game against Auckland was much slower than the previous two and as we tired quickly it was with little difficulty that the accurate shooting of the Auckland forwards took the final score to 10-25.

Three of our players, Joy Mitchell, Helen Aitken, and Janice Fraser, were chosen to play in the North Island team for the North v. South game which was won by South.

Perhaps next year if we can have an earlier start for practices we may be able to do better at Tournament.

Shooting

Again this team played its part in the retention of the "wooden spoon" by gaining fourth place in Tournament shooting.

Conditions were comparable in effect with last year at Dunedin and although the day was fine there was a tricky wind and the light creating shadows on the targets made it difficult for the V.U.W. team to condition themselves to the range. In the team Ian Newton was unlucky not to gain his second Blue and John Todd shot very well, showing that he will be a useful asset to C.U.C. nevt year. Both Ian Chatwin and Jim Mansell did not perform as well as they were expected to.

The three M.A.C. members of the team, John Elemers, John Withers and Stewart Picker, did not shoot up to expectations and will no doubt do better when they enter their own team next year. All in all, Easter coming early and no shoot off with M.A.C. and difficult conditions combined to make for Victoria "the sheer joy of participating" their only reward for 1958.

—I.M.C.

No Drama at Christchurch

An experimental switch of the annual Drama Festival's venue from winter to Easter Tournament has proved abortive. After a decision made despite considerable misgivings, it was found that Easter is too early in the year to get a full-scale production on to the boards. Result: Auckland and Victoria fail to field teams (We know sickness aggravated matters, but still there wasn't enough time), and Canterbury and Otago decide that two doesn't make a festival. So we're back where we began, with the Festival planned for Winter Tournament this year, and for the Arts Festival (hollow laugh) in future years. It's just too bad that there is no suitable time for an Arts Festival.