Hornby’s league chances fade

Press, 1 May 1978, Page 17

Hornby’s league chances fade

Hornby’s chances of reaching the Canterbury rugby league championship semi-finals for the third consecutive season slumped when it was decisively beaten, 22-9, by Linwood at the Show Grounds on Saturday. The defeat followed a similar result against Marist-Western Suburbs the previous Wednesday evening, and there were clear indications that Hornby was still recovering from that particularly bruising encounter. However, Hornby is also missing the leadership and ball-dis-tributing qualities of Its former captain-coach, Wayne Robertson, and has yet to come to terms with the woeful handling errors which have been evident in its play from the start of the premiership. While Hornby has 10 days to take stock of its problems and seek means of rectifying them, another strong candidate for the final four, Eastern Suburbs, boosted its confidence by running away from Addington in the curtain-raiser.

Eastern gained the highest winning margin of the club season, 52-10, scoring 12 tries. Its loose forward, Barry Edkins, had the biggest individual return of the afternoon with a try and eight goals to exceed a half-century of points in the competition. The win to Eastern enabled it to join Marist and Papanui at the top of the premiership table, but both of those clubs have a game

in hand and the clear leadership should be resolved when they clash under floodlights next Wednesday evening. Two forwards claimed the “player of the match” prizes, the Jim Beam award going to the Eastern second-rower, Derek McLaughlan, and Rex Dalzell, the Linwood prop, earning the McWilliam’s Wines award. R.esults.— Linwood 22, Hornby 9. Eastern 52, Addington 10. Points (with number of matches played in parenthesis) are: Marist 6 (3), Papanui 6 (3), Eastern 6 (4). Linwood 4 (4), Sydenham 3 (3). Hornby 3 (4), Kaiapoi .0 (3), Addington 0 (4). MANY MISTAKES Hornby's prospects of accounting for Linwood diminished when .it was not able to make use of the following wind, and Murray Wright's early dominance of the scrums, in the opening quarter, and Linwood was somewhat unfortunate to lead only 7-6 at ♦he interval. Most of the action occurred within Hornby’s 22-metres area, as the Linwood defence moved impressively forward to force errors from its opponent. Linwood feasted on the loose ball that was allowed it, but its only positive return was a penalty by Tommy Lightfoot after a number of surges at the try-line had all but succeeded. It required the individual flair

of the Hornby loose forward, Wayne Wallace, to break out of Linwood’s grip. He was placed in a gap Inside his own naif and moved with such sustained pace and strength that he pushed off two attempted tackles and still had enough speed to leave the cover-defence behind. There was then, for a time, a levelling of the balance. Paul

Truscott claimed a try for Linwood when he ran forcefully on to a pass from Rex Dalzell, only for Hornby to cancel that out by the over-lap which Warren Wright provided for his centre, Kelvin Kelly. The even nature of the match continued well into the second spell before Truscott set up the try scored by Trevor Wong; to its credit, Hornby immediately launched another assault and Steve Brewster's touch-down cut the deficit to 14-9 with 18 minutes left. At that stage Hornby had three of the five tries, but all were gained well wide of the goal-posts and Lightfoot’s accurate kicking more than made up the difference. As Hornby tired, so did its mistakes reappear in ever increasing numbers, much to the delight of the young Linwood wing, David Perkins, who had earlier played for his club’s 19-years side and had replaced Robin Hudson in the premier game. Paul McCone and Alan McNaughtan outflanked Hornby’s defence to give Perkins his first try, and just before the end he intercepted a misdirected pass and sprinted 70 metres. Dalzell, Truscott and Wong were outstanding in a Linwood pack that gradually won an ascendancy over Hornby, a marked advantage that was achieved in spite of the sterling efforts of Wallace and Brewster. The new centre partnership of McCone and McNaughtan served Linwood faithfully, Perkins has

. all the potential of a fine finisher, and Wally Wilson was most consistent at scrum-half. McCone had a keen tussle with another transplanted wing, Robin Alfeld, and there was little between Wilson and his marker, Merv Manson. AVALANCHE OF POINTS The manner in which Eastern demolished Addington in the curtain-raiser left no doubts that its present squad has the flair and skills to aim for a fourth grand final appearance in as many years. Addington has a recurring problem in its inability to achieve a reasonable amount of paritv in set play. Eastern’s hooker, John McGulness, struck accurately in 14 of the 19 firsthalf scrums; there was a brief swing against that trend when George Falkener was brought on as Addington’s replacement

hooker, but over the final stages McGuiness was again in control. Significantly, Addington showed that its attacks could be effective during the short period that it had the upper hand, or foot, in the scrums. Eastern was kept scoreless for 16 minutes after the resumption, and in that time Robert Lanauze — who fended off four rivals — and David Wilks reached the Eastern try-line. But, as with Hornby in the later game, Addington slackened off in the final quarter, and its rigorous match with Papanui the previous Wednesday evening appeared to be taking its toll. Eastern rattled on 28 points in the last 24 minutes, Addington’s troubles becoming even greater when its ranks were reduced to 12 men because of the injury suffered by Barry Brown with 10 minutes to go.

Addington had earlier lost Mutu Stone, the foundation of its defensive resources, and his departure coincided with the avalanche of points which subsequently registered against the Magpies. Only Grant Stocker, Wilks and Lanauze, of the others, gave meritorious displays. John Wesley, the Eastern centre, placed his side on the path to victory with his own try and one that he laid on for Kevin Murphy, who was making his come-back to premier football after recovering from injury. John Dromgool moved purposefully on the right wing, and Dean Harris and Murray French were auick with their delivery in the halves. Eastern dominated the forward exchanges, through the deeds of Derek McLaughlan, Barry Edkins, Alan Rushton and Grant Findlay.