ANOTHER PROP FORWARD OUT

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32540, 25 February 1971, Page 24

ANOTHER PROP FORWARD OUT

(N.Z PA. Staff Correspondent)

LONDON.

The England tight-head Rugby prop since 1969, K. Fairbrother, will notify the Lions selectors that he is not available for the tour of New Zealand later this year.

“My father was going to run my business for me if J had been selected,” he said, "but the doctors have told him that he has to go into hospital for a pretty big operation in three to fout months so there doesn’t look any chance of me being available.”

Fairbrother has a wholesale fruit and vegetable business in Coventry. The loss of this tough forward comes as a blow to the Lions, who have already lost one of their best props and are likely to lose one more. These men are B. Llewellyn, of Wales, who says he cannot afford to leave his job and his family; and A. B Carmichael, of Scotland, who is “very doubtful” for the tour at this time.

Llewellyn, Fairbrother and Carmichael were all strong

front runners for selection as props for the tour. Their defection will leave the selectors with a difficult choice between veterans of previous Lions tours, such as D. Williams and R. McLoughlin, and young props, some of them untried in international football.