WANGANUI has a great sporting heritage and has the potential and facilities to continue to play an important role in New Zealand sport.
It is pleasing to see emerging co-operation between sports, which is vital if Wanganui wishes to maximise this potential.
I wish to place on record my thanks to the Wanganui Rugby Union for the co-operation and joint approach to ensure that both athletics and rugby could happen over the same weekend and both codes demonstrated the compromises required to produce an optimum result for both sports.
The compromises started some weeks ago when the opportunity arose for the Heartland v Australian Barbarians fixture last Friday. Athletics Wanganui agreed, with the help of Palmerston North Athletics, to run the scheduled Regional League on November 7 in Palmerston North rather than at Cooks, as we were unable to provide all facilities for a complete track and field meeting.
The Rugby Union in turn allowed the fundraising road race at half time, which I will return to later, and helped with the erection of the Hammer Cage the next day while the Rugby Sevens were in progress.
At one stage, a referee agreed to delay a start of a match by a three or four minutes to put in place the large gates at the front of the circle. The rest of the time, the working group of eight adults, which included the chairman of the Wanganui Rugby Union Jeff Phillips and eight younger athletes, worked behind the high jump mats, in place as a safety measure behind the dead ball line, to complete the labour-intensive task in a record three hours.
While we worked, we discussed the desirability of a joint funding application for lighter weight goalposts and a drop in Hammer Cage that would make Cooks Gardens more versatile and allow such out of season occasions to happen without the major work and compromises of last weekend. I am sure Cooks Gardens would find such a solution valuable adding value to the already world-class facility.
I would like to see further co-operation between the codes. I know that our weekly club nights, especially our C programme, with events such as the 60m, 300m and 2000m road race, could provide good monthly testing for Rugby players during the off season and preparation period.
The road race at the rugby not only provided good half-time entertainment and valuable racing for the athletes but also proved a valuable fundraiser for the World Schools Hungary-bound cross country internationals Jane Lennox and Christian Conder.
They are very grateful to the public for the $1000 collected during the match. Conder and Lennox produced the best respective male and female times over the 2km Opera House block run.
The handicap winner was Louis Hogan who entered the stadium first to win on handicap with a personal best and a confidence-boosting effort three weeks out from New Zealand Secondary Schools.
The weather, although great for the rugby, the sevens and the Hammer Cage job, broke on Tuesday with another cold and windy night.
The sprinters battled a strong head wind in the 150m and in the run for home in the 300m.
Sam Merson should be delighted therefore with his personal best over the distance (37.66s) as should Harry Symes with his 17.80s over 150m.
Earlier in the evening, he ran a hand-timed, wind-aided 60m in a splendid 6.8s. The in-form Grace Godfrey also benefited from the strong wind with her first sub 8 second clocking over the same 60m distance and ran a wind-assisted 150m in the 300m in another personal best.
Oliver O'Leary ran well to win the 2000m Road Race in a pleasing 6m 24s indicating that he is ready to move up from sprints to middle distance events. Opetini Dryden did well in javelin in far from favourable conditions while, in the same competition, young Daniel Truss showed his potential with a personal best 36.56m throw.
In the triple jump, although wind-aided, gusting wind made run ups hard. Roimata Hipango jumped 10.83m with Nick Brown setting a personal 12.48m.
Wanganui athletes head to Palmerston North for the third and final league meeting on Saturday hoping for more confidence-lifting performances a fortnight out from the Schools Championships.