Vital games for league backs

Press, 14 August 1976, Page 52

Vital games for league backs

By JOHN COFFEY Ground conditions will not be conducive to open football, but six outside backs are likely to come under scrutiny when the third-last round of the Canterbury Rugby League’s premiership is played at the Addington Show Grounds this afternoon. Bruce Dickison, a New Zealand representative less than 12 months ago, will return to the ChristchurchEastern Suburbs centres against Addington fully aware that he must make his mark if he is to earn inclusion in the Canterbury team for the national Rothmans grand final next month.

The present quartet of Canterbury three-quarters — Eddie Kerrigan, Gary Taie

(both Papanui), Mocky Brereton (Marist-Western Suburbs), and Leon Paskell (Eastern) — impressed, individually and in combination, against West Coast last Saturday, and are all strong candidates for retention. However, Dickison, now recovered from a severely gashed finger which kept him out of Eastern’s last two matches, and Lewis Hudson, who showed no sign of a kidney injury when scoring 21 points for Linwood at Sydenham’s expense on Wednesday evening were regular members of the back-line earlier in the season.

The unprecedented tryscoring spree enjoyed by Kerrigan during the club programme proves that he is

back to his rampant best, and he has every reason to feel that his place is secure. Brereton continues to average a try a match for Canterbury, and it is unthinkable that he should be dropped, although he may have problems keeping fully fit if Marist is quickly eliminated from the play-offs.

Dickison’s pace and positioning would be an ideal foil to Brereton’s robustness in the centres. If ail three internationals are chosen, Hudson, Taie and Paskell would be left vying for the vacant wing position. But none of the contenders can afford slips in performance over the next few weeks.

Today’s fixtures are also vital to the semi-final hopes of Hornby, Kaiapoi, and Linwood, now that only a series

of upsets would relegate Papanui or Eastern from the major competition. Linwood will need to reverse its first-round loss to Marist to keep in the running, for it still has to meet both Papanui and Eastern; while Hornby should beat Sydenham today, and Addington next week, as a prelude to its encounter with Kaiapoi in the final round. The most difficult assignment is that faced by Kaiapoi, which is pitted against Papanui in the main fixture this afternoon. A defeat will mean that Kaiapoi will have to gain decisions over both Marist and Hornby to avoid falling victim to the Canterbury Rugby League’s decision to revise its premiership format in mid-season.