Kiwis Face Strong Opposition At Leeds

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30839, 26 August 1965, Page 15

Kiwis Face Strong Opposition At Leeds

IBy BRUCE MONTGOMERIE, N.Z.P A. Special Correspondent.] ILKLEY (Yorkshire), August 25. The touring New Zealand Rugby League team will strike tough opposition when it meets Leeds at Leeds in its last match a week before the first test against Great Britain on September 25.

Leeds, which finished tenth in the English league last season, will gain the Australian test full-back, Ken Thornett, within the next few weeks.

Thornett won first place in a Sydney newspaper contest for the best and most fearless player recently and a trophy valued at £320. The star Australian centre, Reg Gasnier was second. Thornett who virtually won the third test for Australia against New Zealand by scoring a try before half-time during the Kiwi tour of Australia in 1963 is due in England within the next few weeks. He has yet to gain a clearance from the Australian board of control but this is considered to be a mere formality. The Parramatta club for

whom Thornett is captaincoach, have reached the semifinals of the Sydney club premiership and play South Sydney in the big game on Saturday.

It depends on how long Parramatta survive in this competition as to when Thornett arrives in England. Derek Turner, the captain of the 1962 Great Britain team in Australia and New Zealand, has begun trying for a come-back to club football after 12 months away from competitive league. Turner, a loose forward, will resume for his old club Wakefield Trinity, which lost the first match of the season last week-end. Turner is now 32 years of age and is not now considered a Great Britain test prospect.

The New Zealand team will probably play an extra match against Huddersfield during their present tour of England. The New Zealand managers, Bill O’Callahan and Trevor Wellsmore, said today that they would consider a request for a match from Huddersfield —which has played against every other Kiwi touring team in England. They will not make a decision until later on in the tour but it is thought that if the match is accepted it would be played on either Monday, October 18, before the second test against Great Britain or, preferably, on Monday, November 1. between the second and third tests, when the Kiwis will have one week’s spell before the last test.