Spotlight on Southland Sport: Sunday Special
The Southland Tribune does its best to wrap some key moments in the Southland sporting weekend. Enjoy.
Fear for future of long-standing Invercargill rugby club
The Collegiate Rugby Club’s senior team has had to default its first game of 2023 and will make a call next week as to whether it will try to continue for the remainder of the season. The club’s president acknowledges it’s “certainly a worry” for the club where Jeff Wilson started his rugby journey. (READ MORE HERE). (Paid subscriber content).
Club Rugby: Maher's magic moment gets Barbarians home
Logan Savory wraps up round three of Southland’s premier club rugby competition which included wins to the Eastern-Northern Barbarians, Pirates-Old Boys, and Woodlands as the competition stepped up in intensity from the first two rounds. (READ MORE HERE).
The Southland Sharks look to have landed a good one
The Southland Sharks made it two from two on Friday night in its preseason hit outs against the Otago Nuggets.
After beating the Nuggets on Wednesday night in Dunedin the Sharks backed it up with an 81-77 victory at ILT Satdium Southland on Friday night.
It must be pointed out both teams were not at full strength. Amongst the omissions for the Sharks was Australian Jeremy Kendle who had to pull out close to tip-off because of a stomach bug.
While it’s hard to gauge much from preseason action what has become obvious is the Southland Sharks have landed a good one in terms of new Australian import Grant Anticevich.
Anticevich top scored with 28 points and latched onto 11 rebounds on Wednesday night before backing it up with another standout display on Friday night.
He was probably the Sharks’ best in the 81-77 win that went right to the wire with Anticevich notching up 17 points and seven rebounds.
The season proper gets underway for the Sharks on Good Friday against the Manawatu Jets in Invercargill.
Southern Steel’s challenging winless season continues
The Steel suffered its sixth straight loss in the 2023 ANZ Premiership season, the latest a 64-48 loss to the Northern Mystics in Dunedin on Saturday night.
The Steel only put up one less shot in the match than the Mystics but shot at just 72% compared to the Mystics’ 94%.
With that sort of shooting display, the Steel was never really any threat of making the game a contest, let a lot banking an upset win.
Wing defence Sam Winders was probably the pick of the Steel team.
The focus for Reinga Bloxham’s team now turns to the Mainland Tactix in Christchurch on Sunday, April 9.
Northern Mystics 64 (Grace Nweke 47/48, Monica Falkner 17/19, Filda Vui 0/1) Southern Steel 48 (Saviour Tui 22/31, Eseta Autagavaia 6/7, Georgia Heffernan 20/29). QT 16-14, HT 35-23, 3QT 51-36.
Tough start for Queens Park in Southern Premier League
Queens Park has suffered a 4-0 loss to open its 2023 ODT Southern Premier League campaign.
Dunedin club Northern AFC scored in the 16th minute and 27th minute to lead 2-0 at halftime before going up 3-0 in the 49th minute and then made it 4-zip just a couple minutes of later.
Queens Park is the sole Southland club in the Southern Premier League which features clubs from Timaru south.
They now eye a showdown against Otago University AFC in Invercargill on Sunday.
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Close to 2000 take to Teretonga Park for George Begg Festival
Hosted by Transport World and TW Events & Incentives, organisers hope the inaugural George Begg Festival will become the Kiwi version of the Goodwood Revival in the United Kingdom. (READ MORE HERE).
Third for Sexton in road race
Southland cyclist Tom Sexton has picked up a third-place finish at the Oceania Elite and U23 road race in Brisbane.
It came down to a bunch finish with Sexton crossing the line in third, and as the first Elite rider, after also featuring prominently in some early breaks.
This adds to the Oceania title in the time trial on Thursday, the madison title (with George Jackson), and a whole host of silver medals on the track. Tom will now return to Europe to join his Bolton Equities - Black Spoke Pro Cycling team on the road there. (Blurb credit: Cycling Southland).
How about the performance of Emma Martin at the New Zealand Shears shearing and woolhandling championships held at Te Kuiti from Thursday to Saturday.
Martin, of Gore, won the New Zealand shears junior final [5 sheep] showing her male competitors just how it’s done.
New Zealand Shears Junior final (5 sheep): Emma Martin (Gore) 8min 3.39sec, 30.37pts, 1; Coby Lambert (Raupunga) 7min 29.78sec, 33.289pts, 2; Cody Waihape (Gore) 9min 0.46sec, 35.023pts, 3; Daniel Rogers (Raetihi) 8min 58.21sec, 35.311pts, 4; Ryka Swann (Wairoa) 8min 20.31sec, 37.016pts, 5; Sam Parker (Raglan) 8min 2.52sec, 37.126pts, 6.
Emma Martin is this week’s Tribune Sportsperson of the Week.
Get in touch….
If you have something you think is worth featuring in either our Friday or Sunday Spotlight on Sport editions, please get in touch. NOTE: Please provide as much detail as possible to help us collate everything at this end. Email logan@southlandtribune.com