SID GOING OUT Canterbury keeps same team

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33932, 27 August 1975, Page 30

SID GOING OUT Canterbury keeps same team

(By

JOHN BROOKS)

There is good news and bad news from Whangarei for the Canterbury Rugby team.

The good news is that Sid Going is so committed to matters agricultural that he is unable to join his North i Auckland colleagues on the South Island tour, which begins this week. The bad news is that Hamish Macdonald, who has an intimate knowledge of Canterbury’s play through an eight-year association with the team, will captain the touring side against his former colleagues at Lancaster Park on Saturday. Macdonald will be able to compile a reasonably detailed dossier on the Canterbury players while flying south on Friday, for there are only three backs with whose play he is not familiar. Although some changes in the home side might have been expected after its third consecutive loss last Saturday, the selectors (Messrs S. F. Hill and D. A. Arnold) have stood firm. They have made only one change to the side which was beaten, 8-7, by Auckland—and it was an alteration which was forced on them. Bruce McPhail, the left wing last Saturday, will be in Wellington this week-end as a reserve for the New Zealand Juniors in the Rumanian game, and Terry Mitchell has been restored to his old position. An interesting addition to the reserves is Scott Cartwright, the dashing Christ-

church wing who has twice in the last three years headed the senior competition tryscorers. Macdonald knows ali about the intensity of Canterbury forward play, and he is familiar with some of the backs’ pet moves as well. But he would not have been greatly concerned over them if he had been at Lancaster Park last Saturday. With the exception of Sid Going, the North Auckland team to play Canterbury is likely to remain unchanged from the XV which beat Rumania and Waikato in its last two fixtures. Going’s place at half-back has been filled by Brent Mawson, a former member of the Christchurch club. The 28-year-old Mawson, who had a fleeting acquaintance with

the Hawke's Bay side on his journey north, had a brilliant debut for North Auckland on its Queensland tour two years ago. Mawson has been favoured ahead of Wayne Dunning, who has been Going’s understudy for about five years. Ken and Brian Going, the All Black second five-eighths, Joe Morgan, and a former North Island centre, Mel Hepple, will be in the backline. Macdonald will have with him in the pack his brother, Rod—a former Southland representative —the national Maoris’ loose forward, Mike Burgoyne, a former All Black hooker. Peter Sloane, and a giant lock, Maihi Mahunga. The probable team for Saturday is: K. T Going; L. Roberts, Hepple.' D. Haynes; Morgan. B. L Going; Mawson; Burgoyne; J. Snelling. H. H. Macdonald. Mahunga. R. Macdonald; G. Phillips. Sloane, R. Kemp. The Canterbury team is: W. F. McCormick; Mitchell, A. C. R. Jefferd. D. J. McGuigan; R F. Allen, O. D. Bruce; L. J. Davis; A. J Wyllie; S. E. G Cron, V. E. Stewart, D. M. Thompson, J K. Phillips; K. J. Tanner, R. W. Norton, W. K. Bush Reserves.—Backs: Cartwright, M. M. Codlin. K. R. Jennings. Forwards: J. C. Ashworth. S. I. Purdon, B. L. Higginson.