No changes in Canterbury team to meet Otago

Press, 2 September 1977, Page 28

No changes in Canterbury team to meet Otago

From

KEVIN McMENAMIN,

in Dunedin

The Canterbury rugby team to play Otago in a national championship match at Carisbrook tomorrow is unchanged from the side that beat Southland on Wednesday.

The only player in doubt' is the captain, Alex Wyllie. < Wyllie suffered an injury! to his right leg, just below'i the knee, against Southland,; and there was considerable '< swelling after the game. He was unable to train vesterday morning, but ay last evening the swelling 1 1 had gone down and he was!' walking more freely. Wyllie is confident that he will be fit to play and the[i back selector, Mr Gerald"

I Wilson, who is in sole (charge while the forward (selector (Mr Stan Hill) is in the North Island attending | his father’s funeral, said last ; evening that be shared Wyllie’s optimism. Earlier in the day, thought | was given to putting a loose .forward in Christchurch on stand by to join the team on Saturday as a reserve. The plan, if Wyllie could not play, was to move Dave Thompson, the No. 8, and

■ include Alwyn Harvey as a I fresh flanker. i The only selection change ;!that might have been worth .’consideration was restoring I Andy Jefferd to the back line. Shane Gibbons has been : preferred to Jefferd at centre for the last two i games, and Gibbons’s form has been such that he de|j serves to retain the position. If Jefferd ; s to come back I into the line it would have to be at the expense of the second five-eighths, Murray McEwan, who, apart from some sound tackling of (Stephen Pokere in the! ! Southland game, has not been playing particularly well. Jefferd had a number of games for Canterbury last year at second five-eighths. The most interesting point, however, in respect

[to Jefferd, is that he is a (leading candidate — almost certainly ahead of Gibbons and McEwan — for a place in the South Island team to be announced tomorrow night. Jefferd has a sound reputation as a tackler and with the All Black, Bruce Robertson, certain to be the North Island centre, the South Island selectors could look favourably on him, in spite of his present rating in Canterbury. The Canterbury team to play Otago is: Richard Wilson: Randall Scott, Gibbons, Scott Cartwright; McEwan, Doug Bruce, Lyn Davis; Wyllie; John Phillips, Graeme Higginson, John Harwood, Dave Thompson; Barry Thompson, John Black, John Ashworth.