Sports News

Hook, Line and Sinker with Lindsay Doust

Time to break bread - and eat fish

Graeme Essery needed to eat his Wheeties on the morning that he pulled in this stunning Barra at South Alligator Creek, Kakadu.

Easter is traditionally associated with fish, from eating fish on Good Friday, the holiday period, the chance to throw in a line and it generally signals the beginning of the winter run of fish, such as bream, blackfish and tailor.

There are good reports of bream from the Patches Beach area, mixed with some nice whiting and dart. Crabs have been fair (nothing like last year) in the Pimlico/Wardell area and Emigrant Creek.

The water at Ballina is clear on the incoming tide and it will not be long before it is also clear on the outgoing tide. The bream and whiting in the brackish water have slowed but there have been some nice bream caught in the ocean from the end of the Ballina walls last weekend.

A reminder to all boaties - we are now required to wear life jackets when crossing river entrances.

Many anglers are also heading inland to chase Murray cod or yellowbelly over Easter. Pindari and Glen Lyon dams will have quite a number of visitors from the north coast.

The mackerel have been patchy this year off Evans Head and Ballina. One day there will be a few and then there will be none for some days. Around Lismore the river is beginning to clear a little and we hope we will soon catch bass in this area, Wyrallah and Coraki.

Team Worling heads west as Lismore hosts V8 final

One of the Team Worling cars that will be shipped west as the father and son try to capture the Australian v8 dirt modified championship.

Lismore's father and son team, Bob and Greg Worling, will make the trip to Albany, Western Australia this weekend to compete in the Australian Modified Production Sedan Championships.

With over 55 cars nominated, the Worlings will go in as championship contenders but expect to encounter stiff competition from drivers representing every state of Australia. They will have the benefit of confidence and experience as both have previously won Australian Championships. Bob having bagged two and Greg one.

In local news, NSW Street Stocker champ, Grafton's Geoff Hayes, successfully defended his title on Saturday night at the Bartercard Lismore Speedway, winning the Flynns Transport NSW Street Stocker Championships.

Australian champion Bryan Mackney from Casino came home a very close second, fighting his way through the front half of the field early in the race to battle Hayes for the remainder of the 25 lap feature race.

Multiple NSW title winner Lismore's Robbie Duncan added yet another NSW Championship to his name after taking out the Glenn Armstrong Agricultural Excavations NSW Streeters Championships. Lismore's Luke Gray crossing the line for second place and Gilgandra's Steven Terry finishing third. However, at the post race scrutineering, Gray was disqualified from the event, elevating Terry into second and placing a surprised Dave Kilduff of Grafton on the podium in third place.

Easter Speedway action

The V8 Dirt Modifieds will turn on the action this weekend when they contest the annual Easter Trail series, with Round One set to fire up at Grafton Speedway on Good Friday night, Round Two at Brisbane International Speedway with the final and deciding round to be hosted by the Lismore Speedway on Sunday night.

Up to 30 Modifieds are expected to run in the series with a good field of local cars being enhanced with entries from both Sydney and Brisbane.

City leaders join celebrations

Above, from left June Williams, Laurel Moody, Bev Garrett and Bev Bass donned period croquet costume as part of the club's 75th anniversary celebrations.

Past and current members of the Lismore Croquet Club gathered last week, along with the newly re-elected Mayor of Lismore, Merv King and his wife, Bernice, former Mayor John Crowther and numerous other dignitaries, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Lismore croquet lawns.

And in keeping with the celebratory nature of the gathering the members did it in style - in fact, a range of styles.

On Wednesday members of the club donned fashions from years past and demonstrated various croquet styles of play that had held vogue during the lifetime of the club.

The first ball struck in anger on the Lismore club's lawns was on March 31, 1929 by Miss Nancy Ross, who was one of the original group of 13 women who, on November 2, 1928, decided to form the club.

Over the lifetime of the club membership has grown to over 50. In keeping with the changing times the club started admitting men as members and more recently, they have opened up the lawns to school competitors. Trinity use the lawns to teach their students golf-croquet in their sports program.

A big year of celebrations is planned highlighted by the club hosting the second annual Lismore Tournament in August.

The Lismore croquet green will also be host to rounds of the Northern rivers championships that will be conducted from April 27 through to May 3.

One of the recent improvements at the club, the installation of lights, allows for social croquet to be played at night.

Workers, Norths win as juniors make their mark - Baseball

Opening day of season 2004 of the Rex Airlines Far North Coast Baseball League proved fruitful for Workers and Norths last weekend, with both clubs securing wins against tough rivals.

In the main game of the round, Brothers and Workers toughed out a rematch of the 2003 Grand Final series. Unlike last year, Workers walked away with the points following a hard fought 3-0 win over Brothers. Troy Pruess and Josh Daley starred on the mound for Workers, restricting the normally aggressive Brothers batting in what would have to be the Brethren's first scoreless game for some years.

Eternally youthful Brothers catcher Dave Youngberry adopted the role of strike pitcher for the match, keeping his side in with a chance allowing just nine hits for the game.

Workers Mick McLelland, Troy Pruess (1 RBI {RBI = run batted in}) and Josh Daley all secured two hits for the afternoon, and were well supported by Wayne Devlin, Scott McLelland (1 RBI) and Aaron Olley, all picking up one hit for the game. Brothers hits came off the bats of Mick Youngberry (3/4), Chris Coleman, Matt Gahan and Anthony Gahan.

In the other game of the round, a youthful Norths took on the East Redbirds in a tough encounter.

Norths showcased their future stars, starting the game with five under 18 players following the loss of five players from their 2003 squad and the absence of Paul Simes and Brad Daly. The juniors displayed their potential against a determined Redbirds outfit, and helped the Bears to an 8-4 win.

Norths starting pitcher, Steve Ross, enjoyed a solid debut for the club in a six-inning outing. Norths took the initiative early in the game with one run in the first, and five in the third, to move to a six run to one lead. The Davis brothers, Luke and Matt, made life difficult for Norths, picking up three and two hits respectively in a solid hitting display. Dean Snape and Jason Rose supported their side well with two hits apiece.

Norths shared the hits with two to Geoff Hallmann and one each to Matt Maguire, Mark Robb, Steve Ross, Ben Daly, Todd Daly, Paul Deegan, Leon Elliott, Matt Vidler and Jason Britt. Club coach Geoff Baxter said he was impressed with his young side and the distribution of the hits across the board. Baxter was impressed by the youngsters ability to step up to the top grade with such ease and make solid contributions throughout.

Next week there will be a break for the Easter Holidays, with games resuming in two weeks time. During the break three players from Major League will make the journey to Mount Gambier for the Australian Provincial Championships. Nick Shailes, Matin Tucker and Josh Daley will vie for places in the Australian Provincial team as they make their debut at the Provincial level.

At the same time, four female players will travel with Queensland to Tamworth for the National Women's Championships. Heidi Miller, Nadia Palmer, May Close and Renee Berry will push for Australian selection in a year during which the national team will travel to Japan and Canada for the World Series and the World Cup competitions.

Home teams fail in final bids

Ballina midfielder Christian Watson works hard over the ball under from intense pressure from his Workers Club opponent. Watson's efforts went a long way to keeping Workers scoreless even tho\ugh they had a wealth of possession and were enjoying home field advantage.

The home team in both Anzac Cup semi finals were eliminated on Sunday after very tight tussles in which the teams were each separated by solitary second half goals.

Ballina qualified to play cup-specialists Byron Bay in the final by defeating Lismore Workers 1-nil at Richards Oval. While across town at Nielson Park in East Lismore, Byron Bay, playing a strong Rovers line-up, also enjoyed a 1-nil victory.

Byron's goal came from a fine piece of finishing by North Coast Suns star Adam Bostock. Ballina's victory came through a Troy Percival goal. Workers Club can consider themselves unlucky not to have come out of the match with a win dominating play for most of the game.

In the women's pre-season knockout competition, the Callan McMillan Shield, the Open A final will be between pre-season favourites Workers Club and Richmond Rovers.

Workers won their semi against Woodburn 4-3 while Rovers, bursting with goal-scoring talent thumped Ballina 7-1.

The Anzac and McMillan finals, will be held at Oakes Oval on Anzac Day, Sunday April 25, and will include a full day of games with junior, Open A and Open B finals preceding the main games.

Greg's 'personal' is amongst the best

Local veteran athlete, Greg Potts, has kicked on from his success at the Rainbow Masters Games.

Over the past athletics season Greg has been travelling up to the Gold Coast and occasionally Brisbane to compete in the Queensland veterans club meetings. All the effort proved worthwhile last weekend when he took out the 100 metres (11.78s) and long jump (6.18 metres)titles in the Queensland Veterans Championships.

Over Easter he will be heading off to Melbourne to compete in the Australian Veterans Track and Field Championships in both events.

And how is Greg taking the sudden thrust into the heady world of championship athletics? Easy. All he had to say on the matter this week was "All I wanted to do was run a personal best".

Evans prove the pick of the crop for 2004

The final round of the 2004 NRDBA Pennant season was completed last Saturday with Evans Head taking out the Pennant in two divisions, Grades Two and Five, plus a sectional win in Grade Seven-A.

It was also a very successful season for Grade One victors Casino RSM whose teams were prominent in Grades Five and Seven-A.

South Lismore bounced back from the loss of some promising juniors to win Grade Three by a very comfortable margin. No doubt the South Lismore Easter Bowling carnival will double as a celebratory affair for the members of their 'Threes'.

Alstonville will not be faced with the unseemly insinuations that have cropped up in the past over running two teams in the same division as their Number One team took the Grade Four pennant while their Number Two team in the Grade won the wooden spoon. Promotion and relegation respectively appear to be the future for these squads.

Kyogle flew the flag for the north-western clubs by taking out the Grade Six pennant after a close tussle with Nimbin and Ballina.

Ballina's consolation was victory in the Grade Seven-B sectional competition.

Pennant - Final Round

Grade One

Ballina 4 d0 Three - South Lismore, r/u - Evans Head

Grade Four - Alstonville I, r/u - East Lismore

Grade Five - Evans Head, r/u - Casino RSM

Grade Six - Kyogle, r/u - Ballina

Section winners

Grade Seven-A - Evans Head, r/u - Lismore RSL

Grade Seven-B - Ballina, r/u - Alstonville.

The date and venue for the Grade Seven Pennant play-off between Evans Head and Ballina will be determined at an NRDBA meeting this Thursday night, with the most likely date being Saturday April 17 at Alstonville.

Nominations will close for the District Pairs and Reserve Pairs on April 10 with round one to commence on May 8.

Good Easter bowling

Nominations closed tonight (Thursday April 8) for the annual South Lismore Easter Carnival. The carnival includes Men's Triples on Good Friday, Men's Pairs on Saturday and Mixed triples on Easter Sunday. Players will be competing for around $12,000 in prize money. One of the attractions in attending the carnival, according to one local wag, is the fact that it will be one of the few places on the north coast that will be serving alcohol on the day.

Nomination can be faxed (6622 4606) or phoned (6621 3510) in to the club.

Rivals take it down to the wire - Cricket

Chris Axtens, fielding at point for workers Club rises in anticipation as Dave Rose, snicks a Darren Watts delivery through to George Watts in slip during the fifth Grade Grand Final between Goonellabah Gold and Workers Club at Rec 10.

The 2003-04 cricket season can not be put to bed for the without mention of one of the most titanic rivalries in local cricketing history.

The fifth grade grand final saw Workers Club face minor premiers Goonellabah RSL Gold. During the home-and-away season the two teams, in the three games in which they faced each other had won one game apiece and produced a thrilling a 165-all tie (on November 1).

The result of the grand final was almost as close with Goonellabah edging out Workers by just one solitary run, 117 to 116. Unfortunately for Workers they had to bring on veteran George Little as a substitute player during Goonellabah's innings. He was fielding in slips and doing very nicely, taking the odd catch and fielding screamer. Unfortunately he badly injured his knee fielding a ball that was innocuously rolling past his right hand side. In the act of picking the ball up he wrenched his knee, with the ball flying from his hand and he hit the deck. Not knowing what had happened, the Gold batsmen went through for an overthrow. Fair enough. It was a pity that the run was also the difference between the teams at the end of the day. However, in such a close fixture any number of missed runs or missed fielding opportunities could have changed the result. The whole cricket community wishes George the speediest of recoveries.

For the record, if it had been another tie Goonellabah would have been declared major premiers as they had already taken out the minor title.

Webber honoured as US golfer of the week

Lismore's Kane Webber, studying at the University of Colorado on a golf scholarship has this week been named the national golfer of the week, for March 23-28 by the highly respected Golfweek publication in the United States. The award dates back to 1950 and he is believed to be the first Colorado-based golfer to be honoured with the title.

Webber has been in fine form recently, having won the 58th Annual Western intercollegiate with a 4 under par total of 210 over 54 holes at the Pasatiempo Golf Club. He led the University of Colorado (ranked 38th nationally) to the team tournament title, ahead of the 12th ranked University of California and the 4th ranked Georgia Tech.

He has competed in nine tournaments so far this season with four top ten finishes and eight top 20 results.

He is leading his team statistics in 13 statistical categories, including the stroke average with 71.3 which, if he can maintain the momentum, will beat the 72.04 record set by dual US Open winner Hale Irwin in 1966.

This weekend will see one of the standout competitions on the northern rivers golf calendar. The Lismore Workers Club Golf Club Easter Golf Carnival brings some of the best amateur golfers from northern New South Wales and southeastern Queensland every year. The tournament has provided a blend of local and visiting winners as well as offering daily competitions

Most clubs will be running special programs over Easter.

Brothers start where they left off

After Marist Brothers suffered a disappointing loss to Lower Clarence in the second round of the Country Cup knockout competition there were questions being raised about the ability of the reigning premiers to back up.

All the critics have had to do is point to the loss of 'super' coach Michael Woods to justify the coming downfall of Brothers - the region's most successful club over the past decade.

But all the talk accounts for nothing when it comes to results on the field, as the Brethren showed on Sunday in their opening match of the premiership season. Facing their nemesis, the much-improved Lower Clarence at the Maclean Showground, Brothers were the first on the board through Damien Bryant after a slow start. There was no real indicator of the hurricane that was to follow as the sides went in at half time with Brothers leading 12-4. The Lower Clarence fans were expecting the home side to break the game open at any stage but the Brothers defence kept the talented Magpie three-quarter line quiet by keeping them under pressure.

The scoring spree did eventuate, but not as anticipated as Brothers ran in six second half tries to win 46-14, assisted as it were by the sending off of Lower Clarence's winger David Briggs not long after the break.

A warning shot to the rest of the competition was fired by Byron Bay when they outgunned Casino 48-14 at Queen Elizabeth Park. Heading the charge was Ewan McGrady, the former Dally M winner who scored two tries.

Mullumbimby started their season as though they had turned a corner during summer. A big corner. Facing beaten 2003 grand finalist South Grafton the Giants ignored reputations and played entertaining football peppered with ferocious defence.

Like Mullumbimby, Ballina are reaping the benefits of blooding some very young talent in the early rounds. The Seagulls were led by example as 18-year-old five-eighth Leon Kelly commanded the field against Grafton Ghosts as though he was a seasoned veteran.

Both Ballina and Mullum will need to be sure they have a deep list as the wear and tear of senior football cuts into their younger ranks during the season.

There will be a break due to Easter before Round Two is played on Sunday, April 18.

Foley leads PCYC run of success - Judo

The Lismore PCYC Judo Club has had an excellent start to the competitive year as their members took out first and second placings in two separate tournaments.

At the NSW State Championships and Team Trials in Sydney, PCYC coach Alan Foley won the Under-100kg Men's division. Club member Ashleigh Foley came 2nd in the Under-16yrs Under-48kg Girl's section, earning a place on the NSW state team for the upcoming Australian Nationals.

On the same weekend PCYC members Cameron Black, Nick Casey-Sams and Charlie Laidlaw travelled to the Zillmere Interclub Challenge. Cameron took 1st place in the Under-13yrs division, winning every contest. In his final bout he dropped behind by two points, but was victorious after a strong takedown scored the winning point just inside the time limit.

Nick Casey-Sams came 2nd in the Under-10's division after beating higher ranked and larger opponents along the way.

Charlie Laidlaw earned 2nd place in the Men's Under-66kg division, winning two of his three matches with sacrifice throws. Glen Mancell supplied mat-side coaching for the team members.

National points up for grabs at Lismore Race 'n' Rodeo

The Race 'n' Rodeo at Lismore Racecourse on Saturday has been included in a new, national bull riding series. It is one of only 10 in Australia that has been selected for heats of the newly introduced Ice Break Series, which is designed to encourage competition across open, novice and junior bull riding and decided on a point score basis.

It is an indication of the growing importance of the Lismore rodeo that this new series has been included in the program by the National Rodeo Association according to rodeo co-organiser, Terry Murray.

"This might be only the third Lismore Race 'n' Rodeo but its stature is growing at a huge rate," Terry said. "The quality of riders that have nominated is an indication of that. There are rodeos on all over Australia this weekend but some of the best riders have elected to come to Lismore."

More than 50 riders have nominated.

Points will count towards the National Rodeo Association Bull Riding Championship and for that reason Beaudesert's Saras Ramsay, the 2001-2002 national champion, will compete.

Lismore's Race 'n' Rodeo is unique. It combines a race meeting that starts at 1pm, featuring the South Lismore Cup with a rodeo that starts at 5pm and continues until 8pm under floodlights.

"We see this as a family fun day for Easter," club secretary, Michael Timbrell, said. Admission is $10/$5 for teenagers (12-18 years) while children under 12 are free. A special family ticket for $25 is also available.

Junior squads announced

Selectors were kept busy during trial and selection games that were held at the Lismore Netball courts over recent weeks. Their task was to select junior representative squads for the coming season. With increasing high standard of play across all age groups, this has become a far more difficult task that in past years.

The squads, as named are

12 years: Chloe Lowndes, Nadine Lillie, Caitlin Cheffins, Alex Knight, Sharnee Watts, Sharna Hughes, Aria Brockenshire, Emily Ross, Lara Moreton.

13 years: Lisa Kendall, Corrine Tickle, Angie Organ, Rebecca Organ, Kya Altman, Sophie Andrews, Alex Lee, Alyissa Clarke, Elizabeth Kane.

14 years: Jessica Robinson, Marnie Sironen, Rachael Elmslie, Rachelle Sciculna, Georgia O'Connor, Tracy Birney, Kate Woods, Talia Smith.

15 years: Kylie Organ, Lauren Youngberry, Theresa Predebon, Lucy Andrews, Tamara Hamshaw, Jahnaya Mumford, Amanda Morand, Erika Campbell, Kendall Thomson.

17 years: Rique Sharman, Amie Clarke, Carly Bindon, Mandy Rose, Kristy Durheim, Lauren Woods, Sam Barnett, Lucy Burke, Roxanne Hanson, Jess Fraser, Kathryn Riordan.