Lions Win Cold, Muddy Struggle

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31153, 1 September 1966, Page 17

Lions Win Cold, Muddy Struggle

(From

I. J. D. HALL)

WELLINGTON.

In appalling conditions at Athletic Park yesterday the British Lions struggled to beat a very determined New Zealand Juniors by nine points (two tries and a penalty goal) to three (a penalty goal).

On Monday and Tuesday the weather had been unpleasant but yesterday it was dreadful. A bitingly cold southerly drove rain straight down the field and where there was grass the ground carried a slick of water and where there was no grass there was just a slushy morass.

Considering the conditions, the teams deserved praise for the efforts to try to pass the ball. There were some brilliant back movements from the Lions.

The Juniors played with ! the wind in the first half but' all they gained was a penalty i by Laurie, mainly because of; some ill-judged kicking by. the inside backs. In the sec-! ond half the Lions scored I through the greater speed of; their backs. Bebb and Hin-J shelwood scored tries and Gibson, again in superb form, kicked a penalty goal. Several Incidents There were quite a few incidents in the match and the referee, Mr D. H. Millar, had to speak to the teams—to the Lions on three occasions. Much of the trouble came from the persistent obstruction by the Lions and frequent jersey holding. The crowd was quite strongly anti-Lion and when McFadyean late - tackled Laurie in the second half and he had to receive medical attention, there was very loud booing. Two players, Gibson and;

the 20-year-old Auckland fullback, Laurie, stood out above the other 28. The mud. cold and slush made no difference to Gibson. His handling was impeccable and when he ran with the ball he had the Juniors’ defence in despair with his speed, side-stepping and swerving as he glided past imnotent tacklers. Such was his dominance I that it seemed that the Lions would win only if he decided to pass the ball out, for the centres, McFadyean and Jones were most diffident on attack. Laurie’s play was exceptionally good. He did not drop the bail once. His kicking, even against the w’ind, was quite lengthy, and he was unflappable when taking high kicks with the Lions pouring down on him. Limited Fire It was not really an imnressive performance by the Lions to have only a six-point margin over this youthful team. The pack never at any stage dominated the Juniors —in fact it lost the line-outs and it never quite generated the same fire in driving play Only Gibson’s genius gave the Lions an edge: for the other backs, with the exception of the halfback, Young, did not have a very good match.

Probably it was inexperience that cost the Juniors their chance of winning. When playing with the wind, : nossession was kicked away itoo often. This was to the 'relief of the Lions, who were quite happy to see play over the side-line. It was unfortunate that there was so much kicking then for the Juniors’ backs ’ooked quite dangerous, and the pack had some splendid moments when it poured through in the loose play looking, not like Juniors but almost senior All Blacks. In the second half the Juniors were very much on the defensive, but they defended nobly. Except when Gibson was on the rampage, the defence was most dependable and the forwards never allowed the heavier Lions pack to assert any degree of dominance. [ The Juniors’ pack was a formidable unit. Often it crashed through the Lions’ line-outs and it had one great

moment when one of the Lions’ backs was caught in possession by Lister. In raced the other seven players. Sliding in the mud, they pressed forward another 15 yards, carrying with them their prize of the one Lion and the ball. Prothero was playing his first game for some time and looked like it. Price had a fine match and with Telfer. was the best of the forwards. Driven Back

For the first five minutes the Lions were on attack but then the wind and good play by the Juniors drove them into their 25. Over-long kicks and also, too many to the side-line, allowed the Lions relief and although the Juniors made several strong bids the only points came when Laurie kicked a penalty after 32 minutes. : A beautiful 50-yard sidestepping run by Gibson was halted when the ball was dropped, but after three other glorious breaks by Gibson, the Lions scored when he threaded his way through on the blind-side and in-passed to Bebb. After 20 minutes Gibson kicked a penalty to make the score 6-3. At this stage some of the crowd began to leave and in the last 10 minutes thousands of people, possibly driven away by the weather left the ground. In the 35th minute of the second half, Hinshelwood scored a simple try to make the score 9-3. British Isles.—M. P. Weston: A. J. W. Hinshelwood. C. W. McFadvean, J. K. Jones; D. I. E. Bebb, C. M. H. Gibson; R. M. Young: A. E. I. Pask: G. J. Prothero, M. J. CampbellLamerton (captain), B. Price, J. W. Telfer; R. J. McLoughlin, K. W. Kennedy, D. Williams. New Zealand Juniors.—D. Laurie; O. G. Stephens, W. J. Potae, A. G. Osborne; G. F. Kember, W. Cottrell; L. J. Davis (captain); A. Sutherland; G. C. Williams, S. L. Letica, S. Strahan, T. N. Lister; J. M. Finn, T. N. McCashin, K. Tanner. Referee: Mr D. Millar.