Herald sport
Wednesday June 5, 2013
19
Volunteer-oholic! By Lydia Anderson Years of hard work and dedication are being recognised for a self-professed “volunteeroholic” Johnsonville resident. For more than a decade Helen Mallon has volunteered in numerous roles in the footballing community and is now a double nominee for prestigious regional sports awards. Mallon has been nominated for Volunteer of the Year and Administrator of the Year in the upcoming Dominion Post Wellington Sportsperson of the Year Awards, to be held on June 13. She says the nominations have put her right out of her comfort zone. “It's never been about me.” Although her attitude is modest, Mallon has so many volunteering roles she has her own sports CV. A keen footballer herself, she restarted a disbanded women's team for the Miramar Rangers before switching to North Wellington Association Football Club
after her son James was born. She then took on several roles for North Wellington Junior Football Club including committee member, coach, club manager, and from 2009, club president. As the years passed, Helen also became involved in management at North Wellington AFC, becoming assistant club manager in 2012 and this year assistant coach of the U17B Saints. However her commitments do not end there. She served as secretary on the Alex Moore Development Board from 2010 to 2012, is a current board member for Capital Football and is secretary for Federation Five Referees. She also referees games and trains new referees. What is so impressive about Mallon is how she fits her voluntary commitments around her family life and full-time job as a administration manager for science and engineering services at BRANZ.
“I have a clone – she stays up late to all hours of the night,” she jokes. “I have to be ultra-organised.” She says what keeps her going is her passion and desire to give opportunities to people from all walks of life. One such example is organising donations from club members to purchase furniture and give free memberships to refugee families. “It's that sort of stuff that keeps me going.” North Wellington AFC chair Mark Pearce says the club is very grateful to have had Helen at the heart of its committee administration and operating processes since November 2011. “She has an amazing network through the wide range of volunteer roles that she delivers in and is proactive, efficient and a pleasure to work with.” Pictured right: Award nominee Helen Mallon at North Wellington Association Football Club.
Time for Blues to blossom
Sweet victory for Johnsonville A jubilant Louis Karl, captain of the Johnsonville Rugby Club's Senior 1st side holds the Harper Lock Shield aloft after his team downed Norths 39-10 at Helston Park on Saturday. The win was the team's 10th from 11 games to date this season and they won the first-round competition by two points from the Wellington club. Johnsonville had previously won the Harper Lock in both 2007 and 2008. The shield, for senior 1st supremacy in Wellington club rugby, has a lengthy history. It was created by two New Zealand servicemen during the Second World War in Maadi, Egypt. Mr Harper, a Pakeha brigadier, and Mr Lock, a Maori brigadier, carved the shield and it was played for between Pakeha and Maori teams in the desert. In 1943 the 22nd Battallion defeated the Maori Training Unit to win the shield. It was also played for between service teams when the soldiers returned from war but in 1951 the Wellington Rugby
PHOTO CREDIT: MIKE LEWIS
Union took it over and it has been played for ever since between Wellington Senior 1st teams. One of those responsible for the shield being given to the WRFU was serviceman and Johnsonville Rugby Club player Mick Kenny. Johnsonville were on the back foot early in Saturday's match and were behind 8-10 at halftime but in the second half, into the wind, they came into their own and put on 31 unanswered points. The win was especially sweet for coach Mason Lawrence who had coached Marist St Pat's to win the Harper Lock last year. Johnsonville now step up to the secondround Hardham Cup competition which involves the top four teams from the Harper Lock round -- J'ville, Wellington, Old Boys-University and Avalon -- and the bottom four teams from the premier Swindale Shield competition -- Upper Hutt, Norths, Wests and Rimutaka. The top four teams after the Hardham Cup round-robin play premier rugby next season.
Then we saw some of the class of the Blues and the talent of the three named earlier in this piece as well as Rene Ranger, Luke Braid and several others. There was even a hint that they could do the unthinkable and haul in the Highlanders. That was not be but the The Blues came back from being down 37-7 early in the second half to end up only 10 points adrift of the Highlanders. The final score was 38-28. Yes, it was only the cellar dwellers the Highlanders the Blues were playing but the Auckland team showed courage to get back in the match after an appalling start and revealed also that Piuta, Luatua and Saili are going to be hugely exciting players to watch. So, bring on this Saturday’s first test against France who will be without some top players. Of course we’ve been here before with the French. The one lesson the All Blacks have learned playing France over the years is that you can’t afford to drop your guard against them. Meanwhile, last Sunday saw Christchurch holding its big annual marathon. Watching TV One Sport on Sunday evening I expected there could be some coverage of this event which draws thousands of runners and is the biggest marathon in the South Island. Silly me. On June 23 Wellington has its annual big marathon. I wonder if that manages to get on the TV One sports news? I’m not counting on it.
By Chris Tobin One stand-out feature of the All Blacks named this week for the three-test series against France is three rookie Blues players who are still in their first season of Super Rugby. Second five-eighths Francis Saili, fullback Charles Piutau and blindside flanker Steven Luatau are the newbies in the All Blacks named on Sunday along with the Crusaders flanker Matt Todd, and Hurricanes lock Jeremy Thrush. While Saili, Piuta and Luatua have impressed with the Blues this season it was not so apparent in the Blues’ match against the Highlanders in Dunedin on Saturday night, at least for threequarters of the game. The usually hapless Highlanders were all over the Blues in the first half. The tackle statistics for the first half were mind boggling. Such was the Highlanders’ dominance they had only to make 16 tackles to the Blues’ 98. This was just before the half-time whistle. When the ref blew his whistle for halftime these statistics had gone out to 106 tackles for the Blues and 18 to the Highlanders. With Blues’ halfback Piri Weepu knocked cold and skipper Ali Williams forever yapping in the ref’s ear instead of concentrating on playing the game and leading more by example than his mouth, they looked odds on for a good old fashioned- hiding. Yet this did not happen and it seemed apparent that once veteran hooker Kevin Mealamu came on the paddock, only then did the the Blues get their ship on course.
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