All Blacks say Lions likely to be strong

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 22

All Blacks say Lions likely to be strong

The New Zealand players, W. D. Cottrell and I. R. Kirkpatrick, agreed yesterday that the British Lions should be a strong side when it tours the Dominion later this season.

The Canterbury fiveeighths, Cottrell, and Kirkpatrick, a former Canterbury representative, had just returned from a two-week tour of England with the President’s Overseas XV. Kirkpatrick, who returned to his home province, Poverty Bay, at the beginning of last season had accompanied Cottrell to Harewood airport and was about to embark on a flight to' Gisborne.

“I think their backs will be very good,” Cottrell, who was a member of the 1967 New Zealand team, said. “We played against Spencer and Duckham, who are both big, strong runners, and they will certainly combine well together.”

“There was a big improvement in the forwards we saw,” Kirkpatrick, who also toured the British Isles and France in 1967, said. “Their line-outs are better, and their rucking and secondphase play have improved, although it is still mainly through the hand rather than with the feet,” he said. However, both agreed that they had seen few of the tourists—only three backs, a hooker, and a loose forward. “And the English side didn’t have a very good season,” Cottrell said. ANOTHER SWITCH Cottrell, who had become adjusted to being switched between first and second five-eighths to meet the requirements of club, provincial, and national selectors during the last two years, overcame another challenge during the Short tour of four matches.

“I played at fly-half (first five-eighths and inside and outside centres (reversible second five-eighths and centre), which was something I’d never had to do before,” Cottrell said. “It was a little strange at first, especially since I had to come on as a reserve twice. However, the first time we didn’t have many chances to spin the ball, and I only handled it twice.”

Of the Overseas team’s fitness, Cottrell said that those members from South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand had all been at some disadvantage. The English team’s backs had appeared faster than theirs, he said, after being match-hardened at the end of the northern winter.

“We all struggled a little,

but considering we had played very few gaipes, the fitness was extremely good.”

New Zealand’s most experienced forwards, B. J. Lochore and C. E. Meads, the captain and vice-captain of the All Black team in South Africa last year, have both said they will make the decision on their international future before the representative season begins. LOCHORE, MEADS Both Kirkpatrick and Cottrell agreed that Lochore and Meads were playing as well as in the past.

“He (Lochore) has given no hint of retiring, and his play, especially in the England game (when he decisively outplayed J. Dixon, one of this year’s tourists) was as good as ever,” Kirkpatrick said. “Colin’s back was obviously pretty sore, but he usually seems to be able to shake these things off fairly quickly,” Cottrell said of Meads.