Constable Atkinson signs off

Press, 12 November 1977, Page 12

Constable Atkinson signs off

By

JOHN COFFEY

Mocky Brereton, the former Canterbury and New Zealand rugby league wing, is a past winner of the national police “sportsman of the year” award in recognition of his prolific try-scoring feats for his province and country. But an equally accom-> plished footballer who filled a similar position to Brereton on and off the playing field — John Atkinson, of Leeds and Great Britain — has decided to hang up the boots that so often carried him past opposing defences. Atkinson, a little older than Brereton at 31 years of age, recently decided that he can no longer complement his occupation as a police constable and his sporting pursuit as a professional rugby league player. His mind was made up when the South Africa-born Wigan wing, Green Vigo, scored three times against him in an important club fixture. Rostered duties pre-

vented Atkinson from regularly training on more than one occasion each week, in comparison to the four nights that he used to spend perfecting his pace and technique when at the height of his international career.

On the afternoon that Atkinson marked the dusky Vigo, he had been scheduled to finish his police work at noon. But an unexpected assignment kept him occupied for an additional 90min and he arrived at Headingly quite unprepared for such a major fixture. Since he signed for Leeds in 1965, Atkinson had made 383 appearances for the club’s first XIII and had scored 279 tries. He represented Britain in

23 tests and had another nine games for England. t Atkinson was renowned for his ability to capitalise on opportunities created by the backs inside him. He was in Britain’s World

Cup teams of 1968, 1970 and 1972, the 1975 English world championship squad, and made full tours of Australia and New Zealand in 1970 and 1974.

It was on the 1970 trip that Atkinson’s effectiveness was most obvious to supporters of the code in the Southern Hemisphere nations. He touched down for five tries in as many tests, stamping his mark in perhaps the finest of all British sides — Constable Brereton, then only a short way along the path that was to take him to 24 consecutive tests, was across on the far flank opposing Atkinson’s Leeds team-mate, Alan Smith. When the Kiwis won their first test series in Britain in 1971, Atkinson was kept out of the first two tests because of injury. But he returned for the third international at Leeds and contributed Britain’s two tries in his

side’s only victory. Typically, he made full use of over-laps as his rival. Bob McGuinn (deputising for the injured Phil Orchard), was drawn infield. A straight and forceful runner, Atkinson had few frills to his rugby league outlook, but he had more than an equal share in many of the triumphant moments enjoyed by Leeds and Britain over the last decade or so.

Meanwhile, the Addington Show Grounds on a winter’s afternoon or evening will be a more eventful sporting venue while Brereton continues to combine his police responsibilities with his characteristic crashing through the tackles of his opposing outside backs.