College sport: Coach confident of tennis juniors' abilities

By JENNI RUTHERFORD

New Zealand Tennis general manager Pat O'Rourke says New Zealand will field a competitive junior Davis Cup team for the Asia/Oceania qualifying tournament in Kuala Lumpur, despite leaving out national 16 and under runner-up William Ward, of Sacred Heat College in Auckland.

The team of Rubin Statham (St Kentigern College), Rade Radinovich (Auckland Grammar) and Wairarapa College's Jonathan Hurley are minus two of the country's young stars for differing reasons.

Top junior G. D. Jones has made himself unavailable, preferring to concentrate on his tennis in Europe.

Ward's behaviour at the national 16 and under championships in Wellington drew sharp criticism from Onny Parun.

Parun said in a Wellington newspaper report that Ward should have been defaulted from the tournament after he was seen throwing his racquet and screaming after losing points.

Ward received nine of the 18 code violations handed out at the tournament, including one in the final against Statham.

O'Rourke said a major contributing factor to Ward's omission was his behaviour at the Renouf Centre last month.

"It is not seen as direct punishment and we would love to select him later in the year," he said.

O'Rourke said he did not believe the decision to leave out the teenager was compromising the team's chances of being one of the top four to qualify for the finals.

Hurley won the lead-in tournament to the 16 and under championships, while Radinovich was knocked out in the semifinals of the main competition.

RUGBY

South Auckland's Wesley College have made a promising start at the world secondary school championships in Fukuoka, beating St Mary's College from Ireland 29-0 and Japan's Saga Technical 46-7.

Wesley won the right to attend the tournament because they captured the national secondary schools title last year.

WATERPOLO

Westlake Boys High School continued to rule the pool at the national secondary school championships in Wellington with a comfortable win in the final against local team Rongotai College.

Westlake returned to Auckland as champions for the third consecutive year and with the starting seven all making the New Zealand secondary school team of 13.

Westlake beat Rongotai 9-4. Ash Blythen scored five goals to finish the competition with an impressive total of 23.

Wellington College narrowly beat Auckland Grammar 7-6 in the play-off for third and fourth.

EQUESTRIAN

Auckland's St Cuthbert's College were rewarded for putting more emphasis on equestrian this year, pipping favourites and defending champions Auckland Diocesan at the North Island one-day eventing championships in Hamilton.

The team of Courtney Edwards, Becky Brown, Jamie Turner and Sophie Clark were one of only two to have clear runs on the testing cross-country circuit at the Waikato Equestrian Centre.

It is the first time that St Cuthbert's (90 points) have won the trophy.

They won on a countback from Diocesan, folllowed by Whangarei Girls High School (92), Pukekohe High School (108) and St Peter's School, Cambridge (110).

This week:

* Today: Northland: soccer

* Friday: Northland: basketball.

New Zealand secondary school girls waterpolo championships, Lower Hutt.

* Saturday: Northland: hockey, rugby, netball.

Waikato: rugby, soccer.

* Sunday:Northland: Northland secondary school mountainbiking championships.

* Monday:Waikato: netball.