Grave Doubts about the future of Easter tournament were expressed by members of the NZUSU sports council at their Easter meeting.

Many Delegates saw Easter tournament fast approaching unmanageable proportions as regards sole student organisation. Some delegates even suggested the extreme solution of disbanding Easter tournament in favour of small sports meetings between individual university sports clubs.

Easter tournament has fast become an institution of top importance in the university sports calendar, but as time goes on the tournament is involving greater and greater numbers of people in giving up more and more of their own time. John Hutton, controller for the Otago Easter tournament admitted that he had little chance for study outside attending lectures and he knew that many of his colleagues on the organising committees were in much the same position.

Auckland doubt

The question of the future of Easter tournament was brought up by the Auckland delegation, not so much on the grounds of time people were prepared or not prepared to give up but rather more on problems of billeting which have now reached mammoth proportions. At Dunedin this did not constitute a major difficulty, where the response by the city people gave the organisers roughly 360 billets more than were required.

However in cities such as Auckland and Wellington where our guarantee of public support is not great billeting causes a great deal of heartache.

The advantages of Easter tournament are many. Not only does it facilitate sporting and social mixing on a grand scale between the six universities, but also enables our various national student organisations such as NZUSA and NZSPA to meet at the same time and iron out differences.

Many contacts are made between the universities not only on the official level, but also on the sporting and social levels. Much is gained by discussing various student problems at the one time when all official organisations run by students are together.

Most disadvantages and problems associated with running a tournament are obvious, arising from its size and the scale of organisation.

On the sporting side delegates felt that generally sporting standards would rise with the breakdown of tournament into a number of separate meetings.

This could well be. no-one would argue that the social side of tournament has begun to assume new importance.

The Easter tournament has now existed for sixty-six years as an integral part of university life. The suggestion that it may become unmanageable is only the recognition of the problem that faces each university as it becomes its responsibility to organise a tournament.

It is up to the students in each university to lend their support and time when tournament becomes their responsibility. If they do not then we will have lost something which adds colour to our university life and which makes us more aware of our own position in relation to other universities.

Basketball

A Bewildering spectacle of quick passing, dodging and diving, and skilful control of the ball, were all to be seen at this year's basketball tournament. This year the girls really excelled themselves with their lightning moves and tricky passing. However, in spite of this, Otago emerged victorious with Massey, Victoria and Canterbury all sitting Jealously on second place.

In the first day's play Victoria won its first two games against Massey (23/18) and Auckland (24/22). On the second day of play Otago took the shield by efficiently beating Victoria (31/14).

Congratulations go to Mesdames Gough Wright, and MacDonald for being selected to play in the North Island team.

The Victoria girls, although not exactly dominant in the session, played basketball they can be proud of.

Tennis

Congratulations to all the tennis players who represented Victoria at this year's tournament.

As several members of the other university teams said, the Victoria men's and women's teams were head and shoulders above the rest both as teams and in individual performances. All in all it was a satisfying tournament which spoke in itself of many hours of practice.

It was encouraging to see throughout the tournament Victoria teams with comfortable margins make their way into the finals.

In conclusion special mention should go to J. Borren who in the finals of the men's singles championships beat J. Martin of Canterbury 7/5 to win the title.