Weakened Soccer Team Should Hold Otago

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31783, 13 September 1968, Page 17

Weakened Soccer Team Should Hold Otago

Although changes have had to be made because of injuries and late withdrawals, the Canterbury soccer team should be strong enough in the vital positions to win or draw the first leg of its Jones Cup matches with Otago at Dunedin tomorrow.

The return match wilt be played at English Park on the following Saturday (September 21). Last week Otago was at full stretch to defeat Southland, 3-2, and over the season as a whole its men have lacked the drive and purpose of Canterbury players in the southern league competition. The withdrawal of K. France has brought the Western mid-field player S. Smith

into the representative team for the first time, while P. Kay (Technical) is a late addition at centre-forward to replace D. Watson, who has not recovered from the injury he suffered last Saturday. The Rangers centreforward, B. Hammond (broken rib), and the technical players, B. Wilkinson (examinations) and A. Hawthorn (whose wife had a baby on Tuesday), all withdrew from the squad earlier in the week. An innovation in the Can-

terbury team is the selection of A. Gowans on the rightwing, a position of greater flux in present-day teams than in the past It has come to be more of an inside-outside striker, and Gowans will be challenging the Aucklander, E. Thomas, for the same role in the New Zealand World Cup team. Canterbury's greatest strength will lie in the continued partnership of the Rangers mid-field pair, V. Pollard and T. Haydon, who will be filling the same positions for New Zealand against Fiji on Tuesday. G. Evans and G. Griffiths, as they have done successfully on many other occasions, will share the centre roles in defence, backed by the strong last line ’of D. Phillips, in goal, G. Davis and W. McKenna, the backs. The City left-wing, F. Madrussan, on the fringe of New Zealand selection, will be a key man in attack, and his performance will be studied in view of future international matches. In the early match, the under-20s of both provinces will play the first leg of the Ruddiman Cup.