Danny Millward: from club to Kiwi colours?

Press, 17 May 1978, Page 18

Danny Millward: from club to Kiwi colours?

By

JOHN COFFEY

If the fortunes of individual rugby league players could be compared with the fluctuations of popular record ratings, Danny Millward would be regarded as the “high flyer” of the 1978 football charts. Millward, only a few months ago, failed to gain inclusion in a pre-season provincial training squad of 43. This evening, at Carlaw Park, he will be among Canterbury's “top 10” for the first series of New Zealand trials whi 'i precede the Kiwi tour to Australia.

Although Millward still faces formidable odds in his bid to earn international honours, his chances are by no means forlorn. There is a disturbing shortage of experienced prop forwards in this country, and the recognition afforded MillIward by the national panel suggests that he is capable of producing the style of front-row football required.

Of the other trialist props, Lyndsay Proctor (Auckland) and Whetu Henry (Wellington) comprise the logical combination for the major fixtures in Australia. Proctor, however, has been troubled by injuries since his return from a northern winter with the New Hunslet club in England. The other six, including Millward, are a mixed bag. Mike Smith has jumped from the Te Atatu team into the Northern Zone XIII without having had the stepping stone of Auckland representation; Brian Jolley appeared for Auckland before his transfer to Wellington and has been on the trial scene since 1975.

Mill ward’s partner in the early match this evening is Rangi Tairanga a v-tual unknown outside o' his Hamilton suband his opponents are the 1975 Kiwi, John Wright (Auckland), and Mike Issacs, a transplanted mid-field back from Taranaki.

Prop therefore, is one position over which the selectors (Messrs Ron Acklan'l, Bill Sorensen and Harry Walker) are likely to ponder for some time. No firm decision has yet been made whether they 'will take advantage of the

clause in Dane Sorensen's contract v’hich would enable him to be released by the Cronulla-Sutherland (Sydney) club, but Sorensen has already made it 'mown that he would prefer not to serve two masters.

The non-availability of Terry Gillman (Canterbury) and Brian Anderson — who joined Auckland Marist this winter after terms with North Sydney •nd Central Newcastle —

narrowed down the list of forceful candidates. It is nossible that only three specialist props will be named, with Alan Rushton (Canterbury) given a utility role in the front line Millward was “still coming down from cloud nine” when he left for Auckland with the southern contingent yesterday, and he expects to be “pretty nervous” until he warms to his work for the

Red XIII against its Gold counterpart tonight. 1 He has in his favour, though, past knowledge of three of his rivals in the Gold pack. Mike Godinet and Mark Broadhurst are old team-mates and opponents in Canterbury, and

Millward played with and against Wright during the days when both of them were in New Zealand 19years age sides. Isaacs was a centre in the same intermediate era, leaving

only the Auckland pair, Gary Hooker and Luther Toloa, as complete strangers. Now in his sixth season of premier rugby league, yet still only 23, Millward is in a unique position. It has been said, very frequently, that < only Aucklanders — with their advantage vf having their progress noted by at least one national selector every week-end — can

slip out of a club jersey into one bearing a Kiwi emblem. Millward has the chance to strike a similar blow for the south. Millward, sturdily built at I.Bm and 98kg, is at present uppermost in the thoughts of two sets of selectors. Should he not be among the chosen two dozen to travel to Australia, he stands out as a likely addition to the Canterbury A team for its match with Wellington at the Show Grounds on June 5.

“My main aim this week is to do as well as I can at Auckland,’" Millward said before leaving for the trials. “Whether I make the Kiwis or not, there is also the terget of gaining a regular place in the Canterbury side.’’ The progress made by Millward through the grades would delight those administrators who champion the cause of junior football. He was only five years of age when he made his debut as a back for the Papanui midgets, and he switched to hooker with such success that he was the ball-winner in a New Zealand 17-years team.

“I seemed to make the reps every season except in the 12-years grade when I spent a winter in Ashburton after my father died,” Millward said. “My move to open side prop was on the advice of Jimmy Robinson, the Canterbury 19-years coach, and I managed to glay for New Zealand and anterbury against Penrith at that age.”

Millward’s premier debut was with Papanui and he was in two victorious grand final teams before marriage, a lack of transport and the fact that he was living in Kaiapoi persuaded him to link up with that club. “I had not been performing very well at that stage, but I got my interest back with Kaiapoi. This season I came back to Papanui to see if Rod

Walker (Papanui’s captaincoach) could get me going. It has all worked out so far, although I was disappointed that I was not in the Canterbury pre-sea-son squad. “Was I surprised to be in the Kiwi trials? I couldn’t believe it — noone had- given me any indication that I was in the running. My sister-in-law rang me with the news and I told her she was talking bullshit,” Millward said.

Unexpectedly, Millward considers the former Sydenham premier player, Martin Biddle, as the most difficult prop he has packed against in Canterbury. “Blokes such as John Greengrass and Terry Gillman are tough, but they know what it is all about and there is no point in trying to beat each other to the loose head. Biddle was not as good a striker for the ball, but he was rugged.

“I guess that the props are responsible for much of the scrummaging problems these days. It is part of our job to stand and let the hooker have a look at the ball — anyway, I reckon a good prop gets at least 25 per cent of possession,” Millward said. As he spoke, he was watching the improvement made to Addington’s scrum by the return of Frank Endacott.

“When I started in premiers I was young and raw, and guys like Mita Mohi would have it over me in experience and the basics. Now I have learned how to handle things after playing with Greengrass and Walker and it is becoming easier all the time. Hard body tackling is the best way to get on top of an opponent.”

Millward is understandably keen to make an impression in his first appearance on the main ground at Carlaw Park tonight — he had a junior game on the adjoining pitch at 19-years level — and win inclusion in the final trial between Auckland and The Rest on Saturday. Then, maybe, there might be some sweet music for Millward’s ears when the touring party is announced on Saturday evening.

Playing around with fast birds has finally paid off for Lower Hutt’s Kevin Jones. Strictly of the feathered variety, they have started to swell the coffers in the Jones household.

The one he is holding (above) in his eyes is the sweetest of them all—and with good reason. She has

just won nearly $2OOO in one of Australasia’s richest pigeon races, the Air New Zealand Two Thousand, from Auckland to Wellington. Earlier in the season the same pigeon, a hen bird only about seven months old, took third placing in a tough race from Taumarunui when she was one

of only II birds out of 387 to make home on the day. In the big race she was one of a field of about 250 liberated in Auckland at 7 a.m. She homed to Jones’s Lower Hutt loft at 3.40 p.m. after Bhr 40min on the wing, an average speed of about 55 km/h for the 480 km race.

She was bred by another Hutt Valley pigeon flier, Allan Flannigan, and in the Air New Zealand Two Thousand flew for an Ashburton farmer, Walter Small. Birds for the big event were entered by fliers from throughout New Zealand who paid a $lO entry fee for a tilt at the big money.