Giants Blue vs Wainuiomata
South Park 1pm
A shortened Intercity Championship and the return to Hutt Valley Championships are key changes to the softball season, which gets underway on Saturday with a home game for one Giants team and a win by default for the other.
Unlike previous seasons, where the Intercity competitions started in October and finished in March, the combined Wellington and Hutt Valley competitions will wrap up in December, with Giants to play in Hutt Valley competitions in the new year.
The teams will play a full Intercity round-robin before the semifinals, with the finals to be played on Saturday, December 16. The format for the Hutt Valley competitions, likely to start in late January, is yet to be confirmed but could involve a combined Premier Reserve, Premier Two [P2] and Premier Three [P3] grade or separate grades depending on the number of entries.
Giants will again field two senior men’s teams – defending champions Giants Blue in P2 and Giants Red in P3.
The decision of the Blues to remain in P2 instead of stepping up to Premier Reserves has resulted in the loss of the club’s two promising players, Trey Feary and Tarquin Karaitiana, to Hutt Valley P1 side Dodgers. The pair have recently returned from playing the northern summer in Europe, where they turned out for a Great Britain team in the European Super Cup in the Netherlands, played in a tournament in England and completed their stay with a narrow loss in their Denmark club final last weekend.
Giants Blue will also be without former Junior Black Sox Blair Thompson, who has moved over the hill. A big plus, though, is the recruitment of experienced pitcher Shane Kirkwood from Manawatu, who, along with player-coach Justin ‘Chunky’ Karaitiana, should prove difficult for opposition batters to get bat to ball.
Despite the changes, Giants spokesman Chris Feary is confident the Blues can repeat the success of the last two championship-winning seasons under the coaching of Karaitiana.
Feary knows little about Saturday’s opponents, Wainuiomata, although he expects the Blues to be too strong and start the season with a convincing win.
“There’s still a big core of young kids, but they still play good ball and ‘Chunky’ will have them ready to go,” Feary said.
There is disappointment for Giants Red, though, with their first-round opponents, Poneke-Kilbirnie, defaulting their scheduled clash at South Park.
The P3s are coached by Tony Nixon, who has taken over from Russell Kawana. Feary, who plays for the side, which is a mixture of experience and youth, is confident they will again be among the frontrunners but will have an eye on the future.
“Our job is still to win and play good softball; however, our primary function is to give the kids a really good grounding into senior softball and develop them so they then can go up to the P2s.”
Giants will also field a team in the Hutt Valley P3 Women, with their competition expected to get underway at the end of October. The club is also looking to enter an under-13 team in the Hutt Valley competitions.
