Canterbury has league cup but not top ranking

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 11

Canterbury has league cup but not top ranking

r A LTHOUGH Canterbury will hold tiie Rugby League Cup, the code’s premier inter-provincial trophy, until next year, its performances during the season justify a ranking of no higher than fourth or fifth among the 11 leagues in New Zealand. The 20-16 cup victory over West Coast last Saturday was Canterbury’s only success against a major province. Its other wins were at the expense of Wellington B and Otago while it lost to Wellington A (twice), Auckland, West Coast and New South Wales Country. Waikato would also warrant a more elevated position than Canterbury because of its convincing defeat of Auckland in the northern semi-final of the national tournament. Since the Rugby League Cup was won from Auckland by West Coast two years ago the tournament has proved a more accurate guide to provincial strengths-, for neither Canterbury nor West Coast has met a North Island province while in possession of the cup. The most notable of Canterbury’s performances was that against Auckland. After trailing by 11 points at halftime, Canterbury staged a

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spirited recovery to score three fine tries and lead twice before Auckland finally regained the initiative during the last 12min. Wellington A also opened up a comfortable margin in

the first half of its two fixtures against Canterbury and was forced to resist strong challenges from the southern province after the interval on each occasion. Canterbury lost these games by only three and six points but Wellington A returned an over-all tryscoring advantage of 9-4.

J. O. COFFEY)

The outcome of the New South Wales Country match was never in doubt once tLa tourists found their combination and took the lead after 30min. Similarly, West Coast achieved a slight superiority in the opening stages of the first cup challenge at Greymouth and extended its margin of dominance by scoring the only two tries of the game during the second half. Canterbury scored nine tries against Wellington B and seven at the expense of Otago, being able to build reasonably large totals against the two weakest defences it encountered during the season. In the return match with West Coast Canterbury displayed more confidence and better ball control when seeking to penetrate and it denied the potentially strong West Coast team the opportunities to launch its own thrusts. The team played inconsistently throughout the season. Its resurgence against Auckland was as unexpected as its failure at

Greymouth while the successful cup challenge on Saturday could hardly have been predicted after Canterbury’s loss in the southern zone tournament when it had been favoured by the draw. This contradictory trend was probably largely due to the many injuries sustained by leading players which forced frequent changes to be made in the composition of the side. Some of the new players, especially A P. Rushton, K. McDonald and B. Odgers, made auspicious debuts but several others appeared to be playing out of their class. R. J. A. MacKenzie, who had an outstanding game against New South Wales Country and progressed steadily as a first-class hooker, R. S. Walker, whose qualities of distribution, defence and tactical kicking and, when necessary, versatility and leadership were invariably evident, and the powerful three-quarter, M. P. Brereton, were the most regularly prominent players.