“Man to mould Lions”

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 48

“Man to mould Lions”

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) LONDON. The Welshman, Carwyn James, may be the man to “grab the British Lions by the throat and mould them into a truly great Rugby team,” the former chairman of the New Zealand selectors (Mr F. R. Allen) said yesterday. Mr Allen, who was in South Africa watching the last month of the All Blacks tour, visited James in Cardiff two days ago. James has been selected as coach of the Lions team to tour New Zealand next year. “I was very impressed with him,” Mr Allen said. “He is young, keen and enthusiastic, and has had great success with the Welsh club side, Llanelli. Failure to knit

“The Lions have always had great footballers but somewhere along the way they have always failed to knit together as a team. This could be the man who will achieve that cohesion.” Mr Allen said that from talks with James, he was certain that the Lions would play ”15-man Rugby” on their tour.

“There is no doubt that they have some great backs to choose from. James is a little worried about the forwards holding their own but obviously he’s going to work on this problem between now and when the team leaves.”

Change of policy Mr Allen, who was assistant manager and coach of the unbeaten All Black team which toured Britain in 1967, said the main thing he had noticed on this visit was that the British were now very “coach conscious.” “They’re now interested in coaching at all levels and regard it as the thing to do," he said. “There are still some who mutter about ‘professionalism,’ but I think they’ve woken up to the fact that to achieve results you have to take this approach." Last night, Mr Allen ad-

dressed a gathering of British coaches in London Many of them had come hundreds of miles to be present. Unable to develop

Turning to New Zealand Rugby, Mr Allen said that after the matches in South Africa it was time to “take stock.”

“There is no reason to be panicky,” he said. “We still have the players but we have to take a good look at the situation—especially with regard to handling and to our inside backs. “We went to Sbuth Africa with the best loose forwards in the world but most of the time they were so busy recovering the dropped ball, or

the ball which had been popped by a hard Springbok tackle, they were never able to develop any sort oi thrust.”

Mr Allen said the Al) Black tackling in South Africa was well below standard. By contrast, the Springbok tackling was among the hardest he had seen and was one of the major factors in the South Africa victory.

Puzzling selections Mr Allen said he found some of the selection decisions made by the New Zealand team management in South Africa a little difficult to understand.

“Sometimes I felt we may have done better by sticking with the proven players,” he said. “Also, it was sad that Colin Meads had to play. He’s the greatest forward I've ever seen, but with his broken arm it was obvious that he wasn’t really himself.” Mr Allen named B. G. Williams and G. S. Thorne as the back-line stars of the tour. In the forwards, he said that the play of A. J. Wyllie and T. N. Lister was impressive.