League Tourists Needed Easier First Game

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31984, 10 May 1969, Page 15

League Tourists Needed Easier First Game

The New Zealand under-23 Rugby league team would have benefited by having an easier game at the start of its tour of New South Wales, the captain, R. S. Walker (Canterbury), said yesterday on his return to Christchurch.

“Our players had only trained together and it probably would have been better to have had a light game here or in Australia before playing two strong teams on successive days,” he said.

~ The team played three I games in Australia, won one, , the last, and lost the other ; two. Five of the players— I Walker, W. P. Noonan, G. R. Cooksley, B. Jager (Canter- ' bury) and G. C. Ladner (West Coast)—arrived in Christchurch yesterday. The other members from the North Island left Sydney later yesterday and flew direct to Auckland. Walker said that the team had learnt a lot in its three games, and probably would not have done so If it had played under-23 teams instead of seasoned players. In spite of the two losses, he thought the short tour had been a success.

“It was hard playing Southern New South Wales, the day after the game with Northern N.5.W.,” he said. “However, we were determined to

win that last game and we did.”

In the match at Wollongong—the second of the short tour—the team was lethargic

in the first half but picked up well in the second half and held its own, he said. He declined to single out any players in the team who had played outstandingly on the tour. “It was a well-balanced team,” he added. Jager, who was injured in the second match of the tour and was in hospital for a night, was advised by a doctor in Australia to rest from football for two weeks. He suffered concussion.

Last night, Jager withdrew from the Canterbury team to play the West Coast today. S. Wilkes (Addington) will join the team as wing and R.

L. Lanauze moves to centre. R. S. Kirk (Addington) has been added to the reserves. “Terrific Success” In Wellington last night, the coach of the team, Mr M. Church, described the tour as “a terrific success.” The team would provide test players, possibly this year. “We went to learn, and we did learn,” Mr Church said. “We proved this in the third game when we ironed out a few errors and we won.” He said the main successes on the tour were Cooksley, the West Coast full-back, G. C. Ladner, the Auckland wing, R. McGuinn, Noonan and the Auckland forward, D. Gailer.