Hockey

Dave Russell (Victoria) is first in this race for the ball in the Tournament hockey match against Massey. In close support on left is clubmate Dave Thynne, with Massey players R. Boyd and D. Hill (right) positioning themselves to cut off the attack. Massey won 3-0.

Men

Canterbury regained the hockey title but was not the dominating force that it was expected to be with two 1968 Olympic Games hockey team members in its line-up.

Massey did not appear to be well co-ordinated on attack but its solid defence enabled it to take second place and thus register Massey's only points in Winter Tournament.

The Otago team was favoured by the home grounds, especially against Canterbury —a game which resulted in a one-all draw. Home ground conditions were not the only factors enabling them to finish within two points of Canterbury and a single point behind Massey. It was Otago University that produced the majority of players in the NZU team selected from Tournament.

Victoria finishing three points behind Otago performed well as a team both against Canterbury and Otago losing 0-3 respectively, but the attack against Auckland was weak despite Vic's win of 3-0. Victoria's defence was shown in a poor light against an Invitation team—Vic leading 2-0 early in the game, and then crashing to a 2-5 defeat.

The 0-3 loss against Massey was not an accurate indication of how the game ran and Vic was particularly unlucky in this game in which it fielded only 10 players.

A feature of the Tournament as far as Vic was concerned was the number of injuries inflicted upon its members— three cut eyebrows and associate bruised eyes, one cut nose, one bruised knee and one bruised elbow.

Auckland, last year's champions were considerably weaker this year and did not manage to score a single goal in Tournament — even the penalty stroke awarded to them in the match against Vic was stopped.

Lincoln College was replaced by an Otago Invitation team of which nine members were Otago Uni students who were not officially in tournament for one reason or another. Although this team registered two wins, a draw, and two losses, it could not gain any points as its members were not eligible for Tournament.

Geoff Kirkham at right half and Willi Gulbransen as the goalkeeper were Victoria's reps in the NZU team which beat the Otago provincial side 3-1 in extremely heavy ground conditions and atrocious weather.

Women

Otago's long dominance continued with wins against Victoria (3-0), Auckland (2-0), Canterbury (3-0), Massey (9-0), An invitation Otago team to make up the draw were the only ones to defeat Otago (6-0).

This invitation team in fact proved far superior to any of the other teams beating Auckland (5-0), trouncing Victoria (13-1), Massey (12-0), and thrashing Canterbury (I4-I).

Vic's team had an unhappy Tournament finishing last. Vic lost to Auckland (I-0), Massey (3-2), Canterbury (3-0), Vic was perhaps unlucky to lose to Massey in an evenly contested game.