Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Vol. 32, No. 20. September 4, 1969
Winter Tournament 1969
Winter Tournament 1969
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.
Indoor basketball
Men
Vic could only manage fourth playing here being convincingly defeated by Canterbury 109-57, narrowly beaten by Otago 71-51 and Auckland 79-70, Victoria's only win was against Masey 78-40.
The 1969 Tournament saw Canterbury the 1967, 1968 winners toppled by Otago 106-71. In fact Canterbury could only manage third place overall, as they were beaten by Auckland 75-60.
One Vic player D. Agnew, besides being selected for the NZU 'A' team to play Otago was also recomended for a NZU blue. Another Vic rep. D. McLeod was selected for the NZU 'B' team.
Women
Canterbury asserted its supremacy here winning the section for the fourth successive year Easy wins were recorded against Auckland (62-26), Massey (44-7) and Vic (54-10), However Canterbury had to fight hard in the final against Otago just making it 39-37.
Vic besides being beaten by Canterbury, lost to Otago 42-14 and narrowly to Auckland 35-33. Victoria only just avoided finishing bottom by beating Massey 24-22 in a close hard-fought game.
Soccer
The highly favoured Otago team failed to live up to expectation and Auckland retained its 1968 title although it had to share it with Canterbury which last won the soccer in I960.
Victoria suffered a succession of defeats being beaten by Auckland 1-0. Canterbury 2-1 and Otago 3-2. The only points Vic scored were from its draws with Lincoln College 2-all and Massey 1-all which just enabled Vic to avoid sharing the wooden spoon with Massey.
This was an unhappy tournament for Vic which jointly won the Soccer with Otago in 1967 at Dunedin. The only bright spot in a series of black performances was the selection of Mike Peters for the NZU learn.
Badminton
Otago retained its title won in 1968 from Victoria the previous titleholders by gaining the maximum possible of eight points. Six points were scored by Auckland to take second placing and Victoria was third with 4 points.
Recording wins of 10-6 over Auckland, 16-0 over Massey, 10-6 over Victoria and 16-0 over Canterbury. Otago University was obviously the dominant side participating.
Victoria had two good wins, over Massey (15-1) and Canterbury 13-3. Vic drew the match with Auckland 8 games all but lost on a countback of sets with Auckland winning by 19 sets to 18.
Massey had an unhappy time being defeated soundly by all the other university sides, its best performance being against Canterbury which it lost 4-12.
Two of Victoria's reps, Brian Quirke and Janet Miles were selected for the respective NZU men and women's sides.
Brian Quirke was also recommended for an NZU blue in Badminton by the New Zealand Universities blues panel.
Squash
Victoria finished nearly bottom overall with the men's team fifth only beating Lincoln 3-0. Defeats were inflicted by Auckland 2-1, Canterbury 2-1, Massey 3-0, and Otago 3-0.
The women's team lost all its games — Auckland (3-0), Canterbury (3-0), Massey (3-0), and Otago (3-0), thereby finishing last in the women's section.