Sports News

Hooks and Slices

with Stan Bendall

Memorial Ambrose on Saturday

NRDGA

The second round of pennant competition will be held on Sunday.

Ocean Shores

will host the Northern Rivers Championships, on Sunday-Monday, June 8-9, with all club champions, including seniors, colts and juniors to play off in the Champion of Champions event.

Alstonville

Social Ian Welch took out the honours on Saturday in the club's event at the Woodburn Evans Head course on a count back from, Keith Myers and Robert Hicks. The club travels to Casino next Sunday, with a 7am tee-o prior to the rst pennant match at 8am.

Ballina

On Saturday the men will play the annual Ray White Real Estate stroke event, with the Ladies also to play a stroke event. Brownies will play the rst round of their match play title on Sunday. Paul Jones and Jim Hodgson won the four-ball on Sunday from John Lane and Kerry Campbell.

Casino

A single stableford will be played on Saturday.

Although I tipped him for this year's title Mick Greber did not get up for back-to-back club titles with assistant greenkeeper, Brad McLennan, the 1999 winner getting up by a shot from Brett Dean.

Ron Carney was the A reserve winner with Pete Kennedy taking the B Grade title.

Coraki

Saturday's single stableford will be played over three grades with the second round of the club match play to be run in conjunction. Earl Scurr and David Loader took out the medley four-ball on Saturday.

Kyogle

A four-ball vardon will be played on Saturday.

My pick for the title, Paul Hurley got up in the club championships with Todd Spr i nger wi nni ng the B Grade title.

Lismore

This Saturday is round four of the shootout and a single stableford.

The Gil Crawford Memorial four-person ambrose was won by ambrose specialist Bruce Willoughby, teaming with the Warren cl an of Jim, Rob and Peter.

The late Gillie Crawford, whose memory was honoured by by the Lismore golf club's Gil Crawford

The day was great attracting over 200 golfers on the day, proving the utmost support & friends for this fine man.

Don Ross won the RSL match on Sunday.

On a sad note Lismore Workers Club golfers, were saddened last week, when they learned of the sudden passing of club & committee member for many years, Pat Buckett.

Pat and his wife Kathy, moved to Brisbane a few years ago, to enjoy the rest of their retirement, but while out fishing, 68 year old Buckett, suffered a fatal heart attack. Pat will be sadly missed & condolences to family.

Woodburn Evans Head

A single stableford will be played on Saturday, while last weekend's bisque- par was won by Craig Brown, who took overall honours and C Grade.

Hook, Line and Sinker

with Lindsay Doust - Suffolks Sports Store

Simon Griffiths proudly displays the 4.5kg yellow-tail kingfish he caught off Evans Head on Sunday.

This week, while Lindsay is off catching fish, Bruce Mahoney, an experienced lure- sher o ers a glimpse into the world of the bait-free angler.

As with all great sports, nothing beats experience and practice. Fishing in particular is one of those sports where you never seem to stop learning something new.

There are so many vari- ables such as, tide, sun, moon, barometer, wind, water quality etc which constantly change the conditions, we contend with.

Lure shing has been around for thousands of years. Fifty odd years ago when I lived in North Queensland I remember asking a very old aboriginal women how long she had been using lures and she told me her granny had taught her the art when she was very young. In those days the preferred aboriginal Barra lure was shaped like a Smiths Jig and made from the giant clamshell.

Although Barra lures had advanced a long way by the 1940s there were those who still preferred a "frog " made from a red bicycle inner tube with a 5/0 O'Shaughnessy. So plastics are not new.

With lure fishing, you are actively hunting the fish in its domain by endeavoring to place the lure where the fish are waiting in ambush.

A lure fisher needs to learn a number of skills:including the ability to impart the appropriate speed and action to their lures;to work the lure without constantly snagging up;to vary the retrieval speed of the lure, and to vary the operating depth of the lure. They will often have hundreds of lures with them and usually three or more outfits so that they can swap lures and their actions through the water.

If you do become ad- dicted to lure fishing remember lures are made to catch fisher- men so try to curb the urge to buy every lure which catches your eye. Even though you will cast a lure more than three hundred times in an outing you also have to spend a lot of time in the backyard. Try casting practice by placing a plug into a small bucket at distances from three to twelve metres so that when you are out there on the water chasing Bass, Cod, Barra, Jacks, etc you can get the lure into the exact spot. Good luck and tight lines.

For the weekend the lunar tables suggest there is some good fishing to be had but the times seem to coincide with the slack water of the high and low tides around Coraki.

Goori sports teams recognised

Enjoying the ceremony at the Oaks Community Centre were (l-r) Phil Williams, Uncle Eric Walker, Wayne Roberts and Casino Mayor Charlie Cox.

The Casino Comets Touch Foot ba l l t ea m and the Casino Golf Club Cricket team ’s were both recognised at a special presentation ceremony held recently at the Oaks community Centre, North Lismore.

The majority of both teams are made up of local Goori youth and are supported by the Community Renewal Tea m i n pa r t ner s hi p with Cricket NSW & Department of Sport & Recreation.

Both the touch football and cricket teams are in their . rst year wiTheach reaching their respective finals series.

The awards for teams and individuals were presented by Casino Mayor Charlie Cox, with Uncle Eric Walker the guest of honour.

League road train

Around 450 local and visiting school children visited the Telstra Rugby League Road train in Ballina on Monday. The travelling exhibition annually brings some of the most revered memorabilia of the game to regional centres.

Local schools, including St Joseph's, St Francis Xavier, Brunswick Heads, Southern Cross K-12, Cabbage Tree Island, and Doubtful Creek organised visitors to the exhibition, which included the Telstra Premiership trophy, the State of Origin shield, the Ashes trophy, Andrew Johns' Dally M medals and Craig Fitzgibbon's Clive Churchill Medal.

For Cameron Smith, 10, a year ve student from the Southern Cross K-12, it was a particularly rewarding day, enjoying the wheelchair access and a chance to get close and personal with the NRL premiership trophy.

Coaching for coaches

Coaching for speed for eld sports is the focus of a series of workshops to be delivered across the North Coast in late May and early June.

Locally, a two-day workshop will be conducted at Lennox Head over the weekend of May 31 - June 1.

The four topics to be covered include speed for eld sports, exibility for enhanced performance, introduction to resistance training, and recovery methods. The seminar is designed to benefit coaches of all levels who are involved with eld sports such as netball, soccer, rugby union, league, touch football, softball, hockey etc.

The series will be presented by visiting sport scientists from the Sydney Academy of Sport. Athletes are also encouraged to attend.

For more information and enrolment forms, visit the Academy's website at www.ncas.org.au or phone NSW Sport & Recreation on 1800 6 55 248.

Calling rugby union coaches NSW Community Rugby will be conducting a Coach Education evening at the Ballina Rugby Union Club on Wednesday June 18 from 6. 30 to 8. 30pm.

The course is designed to update coaching techniques, equipment and activities for the many Junior, Senior and Schoolboy coaches in the region. Game strategy will also be covered.

Content covered will include footspeed, ball presentation options, dynamic mauling, tackling, tracking, attack, defence and rugby-challenge games.

Registration forms are available through the North Coast Community Rugby Co-ordinator Murray Archibald on 66500945 or 0416 060 268 or from club administrators.

Two-gun Chesworth wins out

Five competitors at the recent NSW Level Action state championships, held at the Casino range, won national bronze awards for their accuracy. The bronze medals are part of the national award system for shooters.

To w i n a br onze medal a shooter must score 7 5 points or more in a competition round.

In the overall championship local shooter Don Chesworth won the Open Ri e and the 2 Gun Total with Newcastle's Mark Murray winning the Classic Calibre. Karen Cross from Taree-Wingham Branch won the Ladies Division Classic Calibre while Julie Chesworth from Northern Rivers Branch won the Open Ri e.

The bronze winners were, in the open class, Karen Cross, Paul Streckfuss, Richard Wat son and Mark Murray, and Adrian Lewis in the Classic.

Lewis Murray competing as a junior earned a National Junior Pro ciency Medal.

Breakaways backcourt excels

Breakaways maintained their undefeated run and showed they are on track to defend their premiership after their 41-32 win over close rival Daleys on Saturday. Daleys came out strong early in the game, but the defensive work of Breakaways Kym Bebb, Silvana Wilson and Rene Lowbridge choked the Daleys attack of scoring opportunities.

In the match of the round SCU Lab Rats showed they are the improving team of the competition with a tight 31-29 win over Daleys Tribes. They confront Rous this Saturday in a match-up that may find the students struggling to post a winning score.

Tribes wi l l be looking to exact revenge against fellow SCU team, the Ter r a Rat s .

Daley's White will be full of con dence coming off a big 48-21 win against the Terra Rats. Their match-up with Breakaways on Saturday may have the e ect of bringing them down to earth with a thud.

All Saints difficult start to the year continued with their 22-33 loss to Rous and it isn't likely to get any better as they will face Daleys, who will be looking to reassert themselves after their loss to Breakaways.

Stars streak continues unchecked

Soccer FNC

Italo Stars continued their sensational start to the premiership on the weekend by besting their nearest rival Ballina 2-1. The result was achieved in the rst half despite Ballina taking an early lead through a Rod Th roughton header. The visitors responded with scoring drives from Matt Latimer and Mark Maslen, the latter being de ected into the net o a Ballina defender.

While Stars were able to maintain their perfect record Ballina have now lost two matches in the space of ve days with their 4-1 loss to a resurgent Byron earlier in the week.

Their trip to Alstonville this week looms as a danger match for Ballina if they want to bring their slump to an end. Alstonville will be looking to consolidate after their 2-0 win against Rovers confirmed their top four position.

Lismore Workers have been putting some results together in recent weeks and their 3-1 win over University came as no surprise.

They should account for Casino easily on Saturday as the Cobras defence has shown signs of disintegration recently. Their 1-5 loss to Maclean was not a good sign for what might happen in the remainder of the season.

The sleeping giants of the competition could well be Byron Bay. In the month that followed their Anzac Cup victory they struggled to score goals and were languishing at the bottom of the table, winless.

They rolled Ballina mid-week and then came up fresh enough to og Thistles 6-1 on Saturday. They should continue their purple patch on Sunday when they play Richmond Rovers at East Lismore.

The East Lismore region, once the powerhouse of Far North Coast soccer, is the home to three Premier Division clubs, Thistles, Rovers and Southern Cross University. Between them from a total of nineteen games so far this season they have won a total of just three games and have four draws. They are collectively, through their results, providing Casino with the inspiration that will be required for the Cobras to avoid the wooden spoon. Thistles and Uni meet on Saturday, ensuring that at least one of them will be getting competition points from the weekend's round.

Girl's football a major success

Lauren Sutton (left) and Georgia Cox, both 10 year old Year 5 students from Our Lady Help of Christians School, South Lismore, showing intense concentration at the all-girls football clinic in Lismore on Tuesday.

Lismore Park resounded to the earthy sound scape of over 100 junior footballers from local schools at an all-codes clinic run by the Department of Sport and Recreation on Tuesday. What set this day apart from the usual footy clinic was not that it covered all of the football codes popular in Australia - touch, Australian football, rugby league, rugby union and soccer - but the attendees.

This clinic was for girls only.

In the not too distant past every time the suggestion of women playing football was raised it would meet with howls of derision. The last two decades have seen that chauvinism break down and now the nation celebrates its outstanding female footballers.

The enthusiasm of the clinic participants was evident after their lunch break when it started to shower. They didn't miss a beat, some grabbed their jumpers, but the clinics continued.

The clinics are being run in regional centres across the state and are designed to familiarise young girls with the sport, and provide development exercises to enhance their ball and movement skills.

It wouldn't surprise to see some of these enthusiastic girls follow in the path of Lismore's own Lisa Casagrande, a national soccer representative from her mid-teens who went on to study in the United States under a soccer scholarship.

Turkeys get up for a win

Rugby League

Marist Brother's Adam Mayes gets a clean ball away from dummy half as Marist Brothers begin to steam roll Byron in the second half of Sunday's game.

It was a top and tail weekend in Group One rugby league with victories to competition leaders South Grafton and Marist Brothers and to cellar dwellers Kyogle and Mullumbimby.

South Grafton are going from strength to strength the further the season goes. Their 66-18 demolition of Casino on the weekend was a team e ort that included four two-try scorers.

They won the second half 44-6 once they had asserted their physical dominance.

It was a similar story for Marist Brothers in the tussle with Byron Bay. After a blast from coach Michael Woods at the break, when they were down 16- 12, they let in another try to trail 20-12. Then the oodgates opened up with winger Brett Spears taking advantage of some Effective work by the Brothers forward pack to end with four tries as the home team sealed victory 44-26.

Woods was heard to say as the score reached 30-20 "I think I've been playing the nice guy for too long. " It must have been some half time speech from Woods, who has a reputation for his calm, analytical approach.

If you are going to crack it for a rst win during a lean season it is all the sweeter if it can be against the reigning premier. This was the case for Kyogle as the Turkeys got up in the last minutes to knock over Grafton Ghosts 24-22. Brad Green successfully kicked a penalty from in front of the posts in the last minute to deliver the home side the win. Kyogle face Lower Clarence in Yamba on Sunday in a game that may see the mountain men surprise all by starting a winning streak.

Mullumbimby gave their season new meaning with their 36- 6 victory over Lower Clarence, placing them mid-table and rekindling thoughts of nals football in 2003.

They have a chance to prove themselves this Sunday against the strong Casino outfit, hurting after their big loss to South.

Brothers and Ballina look to off er the match of the round this week at Crozier Oval.

Brothers will be looking to improve their rst half performances while the Seagulls will be coming off a weeks rest.

Grand Final replay

After a weekend of lopsided matches the Summerland League feature match this Saturday will be the Grand Final replay between Ballina and Byron at Fripp Oval Ballina.

Both teams are coming off big victories, over Nimbin and Casino respectively and will be charged up for their rst 2003 meeting.

Their previously scheduled encounter had to be postponed due to a waterlogged pitch. Both teams arte sitting on three wins and will be looking to get an early edge on their rivals as the rest of the pack follows in Lismore's wake.

Lismore Swans take on Nimbin at the Nimbin Showgrounds.

Nimbin will be looking to return to the winners list after their humiliation by Ballina.

Lismore remains on target for an undefeated season.

The Summerland rep team, the Bravehearts, will play in the Northern New South Wales Carnival on Sunday June 8. The Carnival will be hosted by Lismore for the rst time in a decade and will kick off at Oakes Oval at 8am with the Summerland v North Coast xture at 10am.

Mixed results for junior basketballers

Lismore junior basketball teams had mixed results in the second round of competition in Port Macquarie on the weekend.

The Lismore men's under 16 and women's under 14 teams played a total of seven games for three wins.

The men's team, although losing two of their three matches maintain their third place on the table and are con dent of reaching the nals.

Their victory came in their rst game against Grafton 93-55. Losses to Ocean Shores and Murwillumbah mean they will have to be on their mettle in the next round, to be played in Co s Harbour.

The girl's team had an impressive weekend with wins against Glen Innes and Tamwor t h but also had two losses.

They showed they are the big improvers in their section.

Golden Boot Awards

Thistles striker looms on Mortimer The Echo Golden Boot Award will reward the player in Soccer FNC's Premier Division (men)and First Division (women)that scores the most goals in the 2003 home and away season. The winners will receive packages from Trevor Oram's Living Entertainment worth $750.

Thistle's Kent Juhl is closing in on Stars' Wayne Mortimer after nding the net again on the weekend.

8 - Wayne Mortimer ((Stars) 7 - Kent Juhl ((Thistles) 5 - Grant Nielson ((Maclean) 4 - Josh Saye ((Rovers), Troy Mathews (Rovers), Paul Quamby (Ballina)

Davis on the double

Second Division action from the recent double-header at Crozier Oval, Lismore. Evans Head full-back Ian Davis returns the ball full of confidence during the second half of their victory over Coraki United. The second game saw a thrilling 20-all draw between Lismore City Lions and Mid Richmond. The games were moved from Oakes Oval due to rain.

Last-gasp students victorious

Rugby Union

Southern Cross University are running it close to the bone this season. After their last gasp draw against Lismore two weeks ago they have pulled off a thrilling last minute 32-31 victory over Wol l ongbar. The result gives them top place on the FNC rugby union ladder.

They will not be able to get away without total commitment for the whole game in their encounter with Ballina this Saturday, likely to be played at the Lismore Rugby Field.

Ballina have shown that their defence is the best in the competition, while the student's attack carries a similar accolade.

Wol l ongbar will unleash their frustrations on Casino this Saturday, and unless there is a major form reversal from the home team it is unlikely that they will be able to keep Wollongbar below 40 points. .

Lismore will return after a week's break with a difficult away assignment against Grafton. Grafton are coming off a dour 12- 7 win over Byron Bay and will be looking to further reconstruct a season that got off to a faltering start.

Mullumbimby scored their rst win of the year, knocking over Casino 26-22 after giving away a 14-8 half time lead. They regained the lead with only ve minutes to go. The Moonshiners now have a week off to re ect on their victory.

In reserve grade Lismore City had an astonishing 75-7 win over the hapless Kyogle.

They face competition leaders Grafton next, which should bring them back to earth.