Tough job for league prop

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33858, 2 June 1975, Page 20

Tough job for league prop

(By

JOHN COFFEY)

Alan Rushton, the sturdy ChristchurchEastern Suburbs prop, faces the most difficult assignment of his firstclass Rugby league career when he returns to the Canterbury team for the match against Wellington at the Show Grounds this afternoon. Rushton, at his own request, has been given the task of shadowing Neil Fox, the veteran British international, in a plan that the Canterbury coach (Mr Gary Clarke) hopes will blunt Fox’s ability. An irregular representative since 1970, Rushton made

certain of a place in the Canterbury pack when Rex Dalzell withdrew because of injury. An X-ray last week—his third—revealed that Dalzell had been playing with a broken bone in a wrist for his last few games, and he is likely to have his arm in plaster for more than a month.

The loss of Dalzell led to a reshuffle of the forward formation, with Mark Fuller moving back to the secondrow to make way for Rushton. The reserve will be the youthful Barry Edkins, with Graeme Cooksley being confirmed as the substitute back after the other squad member, Kevin Williams, suffered a broken nose and suspected concussion in a club fixture on Saturday.