NO PENETRATION IN RUGBY LEAGUE XIII

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 11

NO PENETRATION IN RUGBY LEAGUE XIII

/ |N every occasion that a 7 Canterbury Rugby League, team has stepped on to the field in the last two years it has become more obvious that Canterbury must find a successor to M. L. Cooke or regularly stumble from defeat to defeat. There has been no greater illustration of this than that at Greymouth on Sunday when Canterbury was convincingly beaten, 28-13, by West Coast. A clearer picture of the respective merits of the teams would be the try figure—six to West Coast, one to Canterbury.

Cooke, now coaching in the country districts of New South Wales, was the type of player who made his fellow forwards look very good. It was he who opened the gaps, made the initial breaks and passed the ball on to his supports. It was his captaincy which took Canterbury to the top of the Rugby League prov inces. Last year Canterbury forward play fell away

alarmingly; against West Coast there was no penetration, no thrust and no purpose about the forwards. Only W. P. Noonan (Linwood) came through the game with an untarnished record. Hooking for a badly beaten back, he shared the scrums, 11-11, with the much more experienced F. Kennedy. J. L. White (Addington) covered very well in the first half but even he was seldom seen after the interval.

The Canterbury selectors (Messrs R. K. Andrews, D. L. Blanchard and E. Butts) must introduce more penetrative players for the remaining matches, particularly the Northern Union Cup challenge against Auckland on June 6.

In the second row, neither J. B. Kennedy (Marist) nor R. Cotter (Addington) looked representative material: they were sound during the first 40 minutes but their play fen away after half-time.

Two Marist forwards, M. H. Mohi and W. Flavell, appear the obvious replacements. Both were in outstanding form when Marist played Canterbury in the final trial. In the front row. W. E. Butterfield (Sydenham) is much too slow for first-class football and the sooner that J. H. Fisher (Addington) returns to the Canterbury team the less embarrassing it will be for fee selectors. The most impressive back was G. H. Clarice (Papanua). He made several deceptive runs and on the only occasion that he received any support Canterbury scored. R. Rai Strick (Sydenham) made' few mistakes in his first match but bad a difficult time keeping G. M. Kennedy in check. Neither P. M. V. White (Addington) nor B. W. Langton (Hornby) impressed in the centres. Too often the bail was passed raggedly or dropped and the young West Coast centres, L. P. Brown and W. Johnsen, each scored after slipping his marker. P. V. Smith (Marist) missed one or two tackles at full-back but his was an unenviable task as West Coast consistently broke through. The wings saw little of the ball and the emphasis that the coach. Mr Butts had put on crisp passing during training was wasted. When a scrum had been won the ball travelled slowly out to the centres, allowing the defence plenty of time 'to‘move up.

Nothing unorthodox was attempted. During training Mr Butts had coached the players in movements designed to create the overlap or beat the defence by deception. On the field Canterbury appeared wary of attempting anything unusual. This, however, did not stop the opposing captain, Kennedy from making opportunities' attractively from set play.