ALL BLACKS' TOUR Three New Players Chosen For First Test

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29830, 24 May 1962, Page 20

ALL BLACKS' TOUR Three New Players Chosen For First Test

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) BRISBANE, May 23. The New Zealand selectors have not allowed themselves to be influenced by reputations and have chosen a form team for the first Rugby test with Australia at Brisbane on Saturday. Four of the side which beat France so convincingly in the third test last year, including the ebullient little five-eighth, f. N. Wolfe, have been dropped. Others passed over are the three-quarters, D. W. McKay and P. F. Little, and the number eight forward, V. M. Yates.

The Australian team, also announced today, is, with two exceptions, the New South Wales’ side that defeated the All Blacks last Saturday. Newcomers in the New Zealand team are the Wellington winger and national sprint champion, T. R. Heeps, the Canterbury five-eighths, B. A. Watt, and the flank forward, W. J. Nathan. Wolfe did not have a good match against New South Wales on Saturday—his only outing in Australia so far—and still seems not to have fully recovered from the jarring time he had w’ith the Universities team in the United States and Canada earlier in the season. McKay, Yates and Little

have not found their form of last year. Selection Deserved Of the newcomers, only Heeps can be termed inexperienced in big Rugby, but his selection is well deserved; he could develop into a really great player for New Zealand. The team is: D. B. Clarke: T. R. Heeps, T. P. O'Sullivan, J. R. Watt; Illi. Brown, B. A. Watt; D. M. Connor; D. J. Graham; W. J. Nathan, I. N. Mac-

ewan, C. E. Meads, K. R. Tremain; I. J. Clarke, D. Young, W. J. Whineray. The choice of the first fiveeighths is believed to have been one of the worst head-

aches the selectors had. If Watt is not a success, it would not be surprising to see Brown employed in this position once again. Strengthen Side

The switch in the scrum, with Graham going to number eight—a position he last played in for New Zealand in the second, test against Australia at Christchurch in

1958—and its inclusion of Nathan, is an interesting one. It could strengthen the side in the loose while taking nothing away in the tight.

Other forwards who are believed to have gone close to selection are S. T. Meads and K. R. Barry. The team trained this afternoon, as a courtesy gesture to Connor, at the Marist Brothers College. Ashgrove, Connor’s old school.