November 4, 2009

Wheel Blacks start well at Oceania Champs

The New Zealand Wheelchair Rugby team “blew the dust off” when they easily defeated South Africa 51-17 in the opening encounter of the IWAS Wheelchair Rugby Asia-Oceania Zone Championships in Christchurch this afternoon.

Playing their first competition game for several months, the Wheel Blacks were never really out of second gear, having led 30-7 at the turn. Equally impressive on Day One were top seeds Australia who defeated Korea 67 to 33.

Coach Greg Mitchell said that the Wheel Blacks had had a warm up match against Korea yesterday where he described their performance as “pretty rough”  but he was much happier today.

“They did all that was asked of them. It is good to be able to blow the dust off and get into our team patterns. The players have just come off our Nationals so this was a chance to get reacquainted on the court, and also an opportunity to get our new guys into a match situation.

“The big positive was the play of our four newcomers, Chris Lay, Marty Payne, Gavin Rolton and Steve Smith. Lay, in particular, was impressive. There were a few things that I asked him to do today as a follow on from yesterday’s game and he carried them out perfectly,” he said.

The Wheel Blacks, unsure of the strength of South Africa before the match, were surprised at the margin of their victory.

“We did our basics well. We were able to rest a key player like Geremy Tinker for a good part of the game and we got out new players on court. You can’t ask for much more than that,” Mitchell said.

There are three matches tomorrow at Pioneer Stadium are:
11.00am  Japan v South Africa.
1.00pm    New Zealand v Korea
3.00pm   Australia v Japan