OPENING GAME

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31499, 13 October 1967, Page 17

OPENING GAME

All Black XV Named

(From T. P. McLEAN) VANCOUVER. Rain greeted the All Blacks when at Vancouver on Wednesday afternoon they held their first

overseas training session. In spite of the rain, however, the players finished their run in even more heated condition than when they waited in a stiflingly-close cabin for nearly 20 minutes before their plane took off from San Francisco to Vancouver.

The coach, Mr F. R. Allen, kept the team which is to play British Columbia in the opening tour fixture tomorrow, at full pitch, with running and passing. Even that marvel of physical fitness, C. E. Meads, was groaning a little at the finish. The forwards looked extremely lively and behind the scrum, W. D. Cottrell and E. W. Kirton, soon promised a fruitful partnership. W. F. McCormick, characteristically, ran hard when he joined in at blindside.

Cottrell is one of four players for whom tomorrow’s match will be an All Black debut. The others are G. S. Thome, A. G. Jennings and M. C. Wills.

The manager, Mr C. K. Saxton, took the other fifteen which is almost certain to be the team to play Eastern Canada at Montreal next Wednesday. It seems certain the Wellington five-eighths, G. F. Kember, will play at fullback at Montreal. At training, he had little fielding to do but looked uncommonly bright joining in with back attacks and seemed to have no difficulty getting up to take some passes outside the wing three-quarters. The team for tomorrow’s game is:

W. F. McCormick: W. M. Birtwistle, G. S. Thorne, M. J. Dick: W. D. Cottrell, E. W. Kirton: C. R. Laidlaw: B. J. Lochore <captain); W. J. Nathan, C. E. Meads, A. G. Jennings, M. C. Wills; K. F. Gray, B. E. McLeod, E. J. Hazlett.