Spotlight on Southland Sport: Sunday Special
Welcome to The Southland Tribune's Sunday sports offering. Enjoy.
The Southland Tribune is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Flying Faulkner set for international debut
Southland sprinter Riley Faulkner (16) will be heading to Australia next week for her international debut after some spectacular performances at the recent Southland Track Cycling Championships. (READ MORE HERE).
Hawke Cup: Southland suffers another first innings loss
Southland’s 2023-2024 Hawke Cup campaign is reeling after suffering back-to-back first innings losses. Southland opened its campaign with a first-innings loss to Otago Country at Queens Park last weekend and again faltered at the weekend when it came up short against Mid Canterbury in Ashburton. (READ MORE HERE).
Have the best young southern cricketers been hard done by?
The Otago Under-19 cricket team - featuring Southland’s Nick Brown and Shahen Wijesinghe - has finished fourth at the national tournament at Lincoln. But it hasn’t come without a touch of controversy. (READ MORE HERE).
Four balls, four wickets at Queens Park
The Otago Sparks hosted the Central Hinds in two top-level domestic women’s fixtures at Queens Park in Invercargill at the weekend.
Saturday’s game attracted plenty of interest when Central Hinds player Rosemary Mair snared a stunning double hat-trick (four wickets in four balls). Checkout the Stuff story to watch and read about how it unfolded.
Unfortunately, Sunday’s game was abandoned without a ball bowled as a wet day ruined proceedings.
Join as a paid subscriber….
We are a reader-supported platform, if you haven’t, please consider joining The Tribune as a paid subscriber/supporter to help us continue to produce Southland sports content like this. You will also get access to all the paid subscriber-only content we produce.
In case you missed it….
Rugby: The Southland Stags look set to retain close to 26 players from its 2023 NPC squad and are also on the verge of locking in a new big-name signing. Rugby Southland director of rugby Matt Saunders confirmed they were making good progress around player contracting for the 2024 season. (READ MORE HERE).
Cricket: It’s hard to think of too many people who have poured more into Southland cricket in recent years than Jason Domigan. Shaun Fitzgibbon can probably enter the conversation when looking for another example. (READ MORE HERE).
Cycling: International assignments are next on the agenda for Southland track cyclists Caitlin Kelly, Marshall Erwood and Magnus Jamieson. The three SBS Bank Academy Southland riders were all members of the New Zealand junior world championships team earlier this year. (READ MORE HERE).
The Radiant One: Owner-trainers the Dennis brothers are planning a trip to Wellington to start The Radiant One in the $450,000 Telegraph at Trentham on January 13. The Southland horse’s runs for third and fourth in the major sprint races, the Pegasus Stakes and Stewards Stakes, at the New Zealand Cup meeting in Christchurch in November convinced the brothers to aim her at the Group I Telegraph. (READ MORE HERE).
Motorsport: The opening two races of the 2023/24 Asian Le Mans Series proved frustrating for Southland’s Brendon Leitch and his Leipert Motorsport team over the weekend. The Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia hosted the first two of the five-race series which saw Leitch and teammates top AM (Amateur) driver Gabriel Rindone and Lamborghini factory driver Marco Mapelli compete in a factory-supported Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2.  (READ MORE HERE).
