Swords Club Success

Their loss to Hastings was narrow, 9 points to 7, and considering the experience of the opposition, is far from being anything to be ashamed of. A. G. T. Wane, the Hastings captain, is a N.Z.U. Fencing Blue from Canterbury; F. Desservargie is an ex-Dutch Army rep., and B. Puklow-ski may be remembered as a C.U.C. fencer from Winter Tournament last year.

In order to keep the tournament in Hastings to a manageable size, Victoria fought Wellington Swords earlier in the week, and at shockingly short notice. Victoria's loss, 14-2. may partly be explained by the inability to raise our strongest team, but Wellington were fencing very well and it is likely that they could have beaten the best we could have mustered. Our team was Hampton, W. G. Stevens. Free and Jansen.

The Wellington Swords team, which included W. Stafford, the Provincial Champion, and C. Fearnley, an Empire Games fencer, was very strong. Despite this display of might, the match with Hastings was no walkover, resulting as it did in an 11-5 victory to Wellington. Stafford lost to Wane and Fearnley only won half his bouts. The two other members of the Wellington team, A. Fenton and D. Cooper, both fought well to win three out of their four bouts each.

The fourth team in the Tournament was from Wellington College. They are no sluggards and will develop well with competition. Trained by, two V.U.C. fencers. E. Flaws and R. Michael, they provide a valuable source of semi-polished material for the College club. The runner-up Provincial Sabre Champion is a pupil of Wellington College, and has another year to go after this.

An unofficial sabre pool held at Napier on the Sunday was won by F. Desservargie with no losses.

The thanks of the V.U.C. team are due to Tony Wane, who arranged their billets on such short notice; to their billetors who extended such wonderful hospitality, and to their opponents who provided excellent fencing and faultless sportsmanship.