The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 56

50 The Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday, December 6, 1988 Sport be old Kiwi champion proves to be Treuer maestro may PACING MICHAEL COWLEY Peter Carson. Even struggling in second division, Norths have managed to produce players of the calibre of Test prop Mark Hartill (now with Gordon), and the under-21 Colts have been premiers for the past six seasons. Thornett, who played in three of Norths' first-grade premiership-winning teams and later served as president during the early, dark days of second division, is saddened by the present situation. "Norths is a great club wasted," he said. "It has a great record, great assets and the football club has shown outstanding management skills in maintaining high standards under terrible circumstances.

Unfortunately the club is being denied the chance to use those assets. "The competition structure has had a devastating effect on Norths and other clubs such as Drum-moyne. The 10 clubs with vested interests in keeping a closed competition are doing very little for the game's future." ing voted to merge with NSW club St George, strengthening the weakest NSW club and robbing Norths of its strongest playing opponent, many saw it as the final nail in Norths' coffin. Norths have won the Sydney Rugby Union club championship for the past three seasons, but the NSW championship clubs have continually vetoed any plans for a return to the top level and Norths have seen a steady stream of promising players leaving to further their careers with NSW clubs. "The fact that we are even talking about selling the club is just a further example of the gross in justice done to Norths by Rugby officials," Cahill said.

"We went down to second division on one set of rules, then they changed the rules so we couldn't get up. Then we win the club championship three years in a row and they still won't let us up. "What the bloody hell does a club have to do to get back into first division?" While the plans being put to members tonight are for a new A packed and no doubt lively meeting tonight will decide the fate of Northern Suburbs Rugby Club Ltd. With its magnificent harbour views and millions of dollars worth of real estate. Northern Suburbs clubhouse has long been a showpiece of Sydney Rugby.

Now the club committee believes it must be sold. After languishing in the lower division of the Sydney competition for the past seven seasons, the club has found it impossible to attract enough business over the bar to return a profit. Once Norths were blessed with strong afternoon trade and were packed to the walls after home matches against traditional foes like Gordon or Manly. It is now a very different story. Opponents such as Dundas Valley, South Sydney New Zealand or Hawkesbury Valley attract few spectators to North Sydney Oval and the long drive home means even fewer are prepared to make an evening of it at trie clubhouse after the match.

club which will boast an even better view of Sydney Harbour, a swimming pool, first-class restaurant, players' bar and function rooms, there are certain to be opponents. For many of the older former players still active in the club, the club buildings represent everything they achieved in Norths' golden years, when players like Thornett, Rod Phelps and Roy Prosser made it one of the strongest in the world. As former first-grade coach Barrie Meredith said: "It's playing our last card. If we sell off the club, move up the road and still can't make a go of it, we've got nothing left to fall back on." If that is the case, it will be a sad day for Australian Rugby and a final damnation of a system which has taken less than 10 years to destroy a great club. In the mid-seventies Norths boasted a near-Test strength pack of forwards, with international players such as Reg Smith, Gar-rick Fay and Andy Stewart and a backline sparked by Test halfback Champion Kiwi stayer, Luxury Liner, served notice to Inter-Dominion-Miracle Mile champion Our Maestro that the Victorian doesn't have a mortgage on the crown of Australasia's best pacer, when he scored a brilliant win in the $120,000 M.

II. Treuer Memorial, at Bankstown last night. Luxury Liner, driven perfectly by ace Kiwi reinsman Tony Herlihy, scored a tenacious 2m win over Our Maestro (9-10 favourite), with Nikalong Shadow (25-1) running a superb race to finish 3m away third. Herlihy made his winning move when he charged around the field three wide with two laps remaining. Once Luxury Liner got the front, Yin Knight decided it was time to make his charge.

Our Maestro zoomed around his rivals to reach the outside the leader, with 1 to run. The pair drew clear with 600m left. But just as he had done a month ago in the New Zealand Cup, Luxury Liner forged away from Our Maestro nearing the line. Luxury Liner's trainer Barry Purdon was jubilant after the victory. "I'm so honoured that we have won a great race like the Treuer Memorial, and I'm very pleased that the big corwd here has seen just what this great horse can do," he said.

"These two horses, ours and Our Maestro, have shown the people of Sydney over the past few weeks that they are really champion pacers." Knight, although defeated, was far from disappointed. "He was beaten by a champion horse, and it's never a disgrace when you're beaten by a horse like Luxury Liner," Knight said. "My horse ran a super race, and although it would have been great to win, I've happy with his effort." Jr. I Twickenham loss a Messin valuable properties and put the proceeds into building new premises on the site of the bowling club next to North Sydney Oval. Northern Suburbs president Tom Cahill has stressed to the other two clubs that if the plan goes ahead $500,000 must be put into trust to sponsor and promote local Rugby.

Many supporters of the plan believe the trust fund to be the only hope for the survival of Rugby in the area. Committee-man David Cotter-ell said: "As it is, the licensed club can afford to give the football club next to nothing and the situation is getting worse. With $500,000 in trust we will be the richest Rugby club in Sydney." Many members place the blame for the current situation squarely on the shoulders of the NSW Rugby Union administrators the representatives of the 10 elite clubs which broke away from the Sydney Rugby Union three seasons ago and which steadfastly refuse to consider letting Norths return to the top level. When Sydney club Port Hack- J.V- 1 mmmmmmmmzlf i M.wm i z-x" 4 my: RUGBY MIKE COLMAN. The club, with its photographs of proud first-grade premiership teams from the 1930s to 1975 and an honour board listing Norths many international representatives and a life-size portrait of their favourite son.

Wallaby skipper John Thornett, is for many a relic of another era. As committee-man Keith Jones said: "It's like living in Buckingham Palace and not having the money to pay the milkman. "We have been fighting a desperate rearguard action to try to keep going." According to Jones and the other members of the committee, the logical solution is to sell the club and combine with two other North Sydney licensed clubs also finding it hard to survive the North Sydney Club and North Sydney Bowling Club. The plan being put to the members is that Norths and the North Sydney Club sell their Bwyer Scotland, the Barbarians and Combined Services," Dwyer said. He described comments by Ireland Rugby Football Union president Tom Keenan as "extremely "Tom said it was the first time a visiting team had showed the British a different style of midfield play," Dwyer said.

"He said teams in the past had shown innovations in mauling and scrumagging, but not this particular style in the backs. "Our style, which we didn't show even on the 1984 tour, is to play it flat bring the attack right up to the defence. "It puts players on both sides under extreme pressure but we showed it works when it's done properly." Dwyer said that style had been absent from Australian Rugby since the triumphant 1977-78 schoolboys. That tour included Michael O'Connor, Wally Lewis and Chris Roche. With Australia revitalising and perfecting their midfield, it made for an exciting three-Test Lions tour next June.

Dwyer said it was "very conceivable" that the Wallaby XV which smashed Scotland and the Barbarians would be the Australian XV to meet the Lions in the first Test on July 1 in Sydney. However, the two dangers which always haunt the end of a Wallaby tour retirements and Rugby League are present again. Queensland prop Andy Mcln-tyre. who has been capped 37 times, says he's calling it a day from international Rugby. Rumours abound that up to 10 senior players do not want to tour again.

The League offers to Wallabies are more serious. "It's a constant threat to us and keeps us just away from the consistency in performance we'd like," Dwyer said. The Wallabies' average of 4.8 tries per match laid the groundwork for a tour points tally nearly tw ice that of their opponents. The Australians scored 68 tries in 15 matches with only 28 English, Scottish and Italian players crossing their line. The 29th try against Australia was a penalty try awarded in the North and Midlands Game at Dundee.

The Wallabies total points tally was 438 from 1 1 wins and four losses with 236 against. Leading points-scorer was five-eighth Michael Lynagh with 80 points. His 23 against Italy equalled his international record for the fourth time. Second-highest points-scorer was David Campese (72), followed by David Knox (69). Campese also scored the most tries (1 5).

ilff cX King Apollo 'laughs heartily for the camera at Roseneath Stud. The virile, sparingly used 21-year-old chestnut mighty Star Kingdom's sons at stud. King Apollo defies the years to help further a star pedigree 'X-y -yj-K y-: Picture MARK BAKfcR is one of the last of the He mentioned King's Ideal, Sty lee and Apollua. Neville Begg said that Stylee was "one of the best little fillies I ever trained." He added "She won everywhere we raced her. All tracks came alike to her.

She was very good and very genuine." Clear Apollo, a three-quarter sister to the Golden Slipper winner, Star Watch, was another good filly by King Apollo. There are more than 100 individual winners by King Apollo although be was mated with less than 15 mares most seasons. Richards and his veterinary advisers believe that King Apollo's light racing and stud careers are probably the reasons behind the old horse's extraordinary virility. Over the last few seasons, King Apollo, according to Richards, languished in the back paddocks of the breeding world because the Foysters were pre-occupied with so many other younger stallions. He has served 17 mares so far this season at Roseneath.

Several of them are Richards's home mares. He says he wants this nuggetty, typical Star Kingdom type horse to get half-a-dozen more, even though December is the back-end of the breeding season. "I'd love to hear from a few broodmare owners; the fee is only $3,000 and for that you will get a Star Kingdom line colt or filly," he added. If Richards succeeds with King Apollo, then yet another chapter in the remarkable Star Kingdom saga is about to unfold. Hunt races away with records PACIFIC GAMES Commonwealth Games hopeful Aaron Hunt broke Australian and NSW records for the 17-years-and-over steeplechase at the Pacific School Games yesterday.

The 16-year-old from Bondi ran 5min 43.73s, which was 1 Is faster that the old Australian under-17 record. He was also 9s under the Australian under-1 8 record. He quickly took the lead and finished more than 100m in front of the runner-up, Aaron Kelly, who finished in 6min 3s. Hunt blasted away his personal best of 6min, which he produced at the NSW All-schools Pulsar Quartz Games in Sydney last month. He will also contest the and 3.000m finals.

Brilliant young NSW swimmer Leigh Habler boosted her gold medal tally to five. The talented 12-year-old scored a hat-trick of wins in her age group yesterday, taking out the 50m freestyle and butterfly races and also the 200m individual medley. Another impressive performer has been Queensland's Jason Cooper, who doubled his gold medal count to four with victories in the 1 6-year boys' 200m freestyle and 1 00m" butterfly. Chinese star sprinter Qzang Ham outpaced favoured NSW champion and Commonwealth Games candidate Chad Stephenson in the 16-years 1 00m semifinal. Ham, who was suffering from heatstroke on Sunday, came good in yesterday's heat, winning in 10.84s.

He will go into the final the fastest qualifier. Victoria's Kym Burns continued her fine form, winning her second gold medal and breaking Australian and NSW records for the 1 7-years-and-over triple jump. Burns's jump of 12.48m was 9cm further than her own previous record of 12.39m, set earlier this year. Burns actually jumped 1 2.57m yesterday, but the distance was disallowed because of it being wind assisted. Derek Zorzit, of the ACT, won the 1 7-years-and-over decathlon with a final score of 6,544 points.

Tasmania's Andrew Ayton easily won the 16-years event with a score of 5,98 3. NSW Combined High Schools 800m champion Louise Fursman, of Camden, only narrowly missed qualifying for the girls' 16-years 800m final, despite having an arm in plaster and leg injuries. The NSW record-holder was hit by a car last week as she jogged to a training session. She will have her lower arm in a fibreglass cast for another two weeks. Fursman managed to qualify for the semi-final but could manage only 2min 19.05s well below her record of 2min 12.4s.

sights on the 1989 APSA pro-am title as well as the elimination trials of some of the Grand Prix events on the world circuit. The 1988 Australian cadet title, for 15-years-and-under, was a titanic struggle to the bitter end with Wollongong pair, Karl Palmer and Jake Spooner. Spooner, the reigning under-1 5 national schoolboy champion, led the ratings going into the final event in Perth and his second placing to the winner, Karl Palmer, was sufficient to give him the national title on 4,300 points-from Palmer on 4,000. These two youngsters are products of Chris "Critter" Byrne, of the Illawarra Academy of Surfing, whose prime objective is to provide future champions of the calibre of Mark Richards, Tom Carroll, Damien Hardman and Pam Burridge. reflects ROME, Monday: Arriving home with two Test wins instead of three was not ideal, but possibly the best publicity for next year's Lions tour, according to Australian Rugby coach Bob Dwyer.

I was so disappointed after we lost to England," Dwyer said, reflecting on the 15-match, nine-week Wallaby tour which produced 68 tries in 1 1 wins and Test victories over Scotland and Italy. But the 28-19 loss to England -before 65,000 people at Twickenham and a larger television audience back home cut deeply. "In a way it was a blessing, because normally I'd analyse a loss with the players, showing them how subtle changes in position and things like that could have helped us," Dwyer said. "But I showed them the tape and said: 'There's nothing there to build orr. We have to start from scratch." Maybe the move to the crisper air of Scotland did the trick, but it was more a determination by players and coaches to show Australia was still a world leader in Rugby.

The Wallabies won all four matches in Scotland, including a 32-13 Test win at Murrayfield described by many, including Dwyer, as probably the best display all tour. That match; plus the 19-19 second Test draw against the All Blacks in Brisbane earlier this year, were the only two games of 1988 in which the understanding and teamwork in the midfield came together, Dwyer said. "For the last few years, really since 84-85, there's been a steady decline in the standard of midfield play, he said. "We've got by on a strong set-play platform and talented individuals as opposed to a good team performance in the backs." The 1988 Bicentennial tour revived that style of play. "We revealed it again particularly against South of Scotland, Bob Dwyer Bain was HONOLULU, Monday: At 6.20 am on Sunday, top Australian surfer Rob Bain drove down to Sunset Beach for a practice surf.

The winter sun doesn't rise over Hawaii until 7 am, so it was still pitch dark. Risky, Bain figured, but a good time to ride some uncluttered waves. But when he paddled out, he went into shock. Forty riders were already out there, jockeying frantically for the occasional 2m to 3m peaks. Now this is not normal, even in Surf City, Oahu, Hawaii.

But recently the Hawaiian islands' have been suffering from a rare problem: lack of surf. And no-one wanted to miss the first waves in a week. As equally shellshocked American pro Mike Parsons put it: "That morning was ridiculous. Everyone's just so keen. There hasn't been any surf for so long." Surfboard riding in Hawaii is almost a religion, its altars the i 1 RACING BILLWHITTAKER King Apollo, who started a new life as a sire at Roseneath Stud, Cobbitty, this season is 21 years old, bat this baldy-faced chestnut is not just any old stallion.

King Apollo is a rare piece of horseflesh being a sturdy, virile and potent son of mighty Star Kingdom. There used to be many sons of the champion stallion, starting with Kingster who first "stood" at stud throughout Australia 31 years ago. Now there are a mere four Kaoni Star, King Apollo, Coalcliff and Tattenham. All are members of Star Kingdom's 16th and last crop of foals sired in 1966, when the Irish-bred "King of Baramul Stud" was -20 years old and about six months before his death on April 21, 1967. Star Kingdom was dead when the subject of this story was born.

Grandsons and great-grandsons of Star Kingdom abound at stud in the breeding paddocks of the world. But, as enterprising young breeder Peter Richards says: "Having an actual son of the old horse here at Roseneath is a page from the past and it's exciting. "I can't wait for next year's crop of King Apollo foals, the grandsons and grand-daughters of the champion himself." Richards bought King Apollo this year when an agent told him the sale of the then 20-year-old stallion to Thailand had "fallen through." any waves, you get tension. Lots of it. The tension has even led to fistfights in the water between locals and some of the many wave-mad travellers who invade Oahu's north shore in winter.

One brawl last week, at a popular surf break known as Rocky Point, reportedly involved two well-known Hawaiians and resulted in several trips to the local hospital. Such things annoy the top professionals, who are faced with the need to warm up on fleets of six or more surfboards, all designed for different conditions. The combination of crowds and small waves have had them sneaking off to reefs all over Oahu, trying to beat each other to the best surf. Former world champ Tom Curren abandoned his boards altogether for some days, choosing to bodysurf instead. "I know there hasn't been much He decided King Apollo would get the chances he deserves at Roseneath, which is about to be sold and revamped as one of Australia's leading studs once again.

King Apollo, on averages, is past his prime; most stallions are finished at 16. Yet there are exceptions Star Kingdom himself, for example. He was 20 in the spring of 1966 when he sired King Apollo, Planet Kingdom, Osmunda, Red God and Coalcliff in what was his last crop. Further back in history, Musket was 17 when he sired Carbine, almost certainly the greatest thoroughbred ever produced in New Zealand or Australia. Northern Dancer was 25 when they finally retired him from stud in the US last year.

He had remained prepotent to the end of his extraordinary career as perhaps the most successful stallion of the present era in America. His greatest son, Nijinsky, rising 22, is still in demand and getting winner after winner in the high-class European and American competition. Further back in European racing history, the breeding books tell us that Donatello II was 19 when he sired the champion Derby winner surf yet," he said of his decision to pass up the recent Australian events in favour of Hawaii. "But I've had plenty of time to warm up my boards and get fit. At least it wasn't this crowded all the time." World champion and rankings leader Damien Hardman made a good point, however.

"I don't mind at all," he said. "I just love the water, the climate. Even small waves in Hawaii are better than the waves we get at home." Ironically, strong swells began hitting Oahu yesterday, forcing the postponement of a major ASP tour event when Sunset Beach was declared too wild. The event, the Hard Rock Cafe World Cup, is scheduled to begin this morning in slightly smaller waves. It is the first of three climactic world tour events in Hawaii.

The second, the Marui Pipeline Masters, is set for December 12; the third, the $US 115,000 Billabong Pro, for December 20. Crepello. St Simon, the greatest stallion of all time, was also 19 when he sired Chaucer. Chaucer, a wonderful horse, became the sire of the dams of three world champion stallions Fair-May, Pharos and Hyperion (Star Kingdom's grand sire). So Richards is confident that King Apollo is young enough to sire good stock in the next three or four years, even though he is five years past the average age of decline.

King Apollo was bred and reared at Baramul Stud by the late Alf Ellison and his secretary, Nora Elliott, from a mating of Star Kingdom and the New Zealand-bred mare Pio Pio (by Summertime). Ellison had bought Pio Pio from her New Zealand breeder K. B. MacKenzie in 1964, when Pio Pio was five and in foal to Copenhagen. Later Ellison sold Pio Pio (in foal to Tod man) to a US stud.

Lloyd Foyster came into the King Apollo picture at the 1969 William Inglis Sydney yearling sale when be bought the chestnut colt by Stsr Kingdom from Pio Pio offered by Baramul Stud. Foyster had to go to $18,000. Earlier he paid $32,000 (second top price) for the Star Kingdom colt he was to name Planet Kingdom. Tom Carroll shows a -w y-s While King Apollo, lightly raced, won six races from 20 starts and finished a fine third to Rajah Sahib and Tauto in the 1971 Doncaster Handicap as a three-year-old, he always seemed to play second fiddle to his stablemate, Planet Kingdom. I asked trainer Neville Begg about the two horses.

He said: "Really, there was not much between them. King Apollo was a brilliant colt and with a bit of luck he might have won the 1971 Doncaster. He was often unlucky. "He never reached his full potential because Mr Foyster did not believe in over-racing his colts." Foyster said from Mudgee yesterday that King Apollo was also lightly used at stud. And the pattern was the same with Coalcliff, who is now standing at Foyster's Paradise Park Stud at Mudgee.

Asked about a stud fee for the 21 year-old Coalcliff, Foyster said: "It's negotiable!" He recalled that he sold King Apollo to his late father, John, and that Foyster sen preferred to mate the chestnut with his own mares, plus only a few from outside breeders. "Yes, and we bred some good ones by him too," Lloyd Foyster added. champion's style 'X a in the dark about early risers Faunce's solid effort wraps up junior title SURFING NICK CARROLL incredible waves which roar out of storm centres far to the north-west of the islands and smash into shallow lava reefs just offshore. Predicting the arrival of the swells is both a science and an art. In the early part of this century, Waikiki beach boys like Duke Kahanamoku thought they were created by earthquakes.

Now the storm centres are tracked by US technology, and veteran surfers try to outdo each other in guessing the exact time and size of each swell. When you combine the legendary surf with the thrill of a world surfing title showdown scheduled for Oahu over the next month you have a powerful attraction for thousands of surfers of all shapes and sizes. And when you combine thousands of eager surfers with hardly PERTH: Surfer Adam Faunce, from the NSW central coast club Avoca, has won this year's national pro junior title of the Australian Professional Surfing Association. Faunce, a two-times winner of the Sun Pro Junior Surf-out, clinched his first Australian championship win with a third placing in the Eastern Bundy Pro Am at Triggs Point, in Western Australia, over the weekend. Earlier this year, Faunce won the Sun Surf-out at Curl Curl and the Beach Crew Big at Bells Beach, in Victoria, as well as recording some valuable runner-up and minor placings in other pro-am events.

Another major achievement was to qualify for the main event of the Rip Curl Bells International grand prix at Torquay in Victoria. Faunce, 18, will now set his.