Rules win for Canterbury

Press, 5 June 1978, Page 3

Rules win for Canterbury

Canterbury’s 18 players enjoyed a new feeling when they beat Wellington 60-34 in the national Australian Rules championships at Wainoni Park yesterday.

The deserved win was the first Canterbury had achieved against another province and it placed the team in today’s final with Auckland, which won both its preliminary games. Afterwards, in a dressing room full of ecstatic players, the Canterbury captaincoach (Gary Simm) called the win “a great effort” and paid tribute to “Aussie” (Brian) McLean and Chris Guthrie.

McLean, better known as the Marist senior rugby fullback, was a red-headed rover with undiminished energy and kicked one of th e eight goals (together with 12 behinds) that made up Canterbury’s points, and Guthrie, the centre half-for-ward, starred with several fine marks and two goals. Four of the other goals were kicked by John Ross, who made great use of his height of 2.03 m (6ft Bin) to catch well-placed kicks by his team-mates. Ross, a right-footer, showed an ability to tise his left foot equally well and he will be missed in the final. The MidCanterbury rugby team needs him as a lock for a representative match. The other goal was scored from a big kick from the lanky Bruce Turner, and Wellington’s points came from five goals (Chris O’Donneli, 2, Rod Hyde, 2, and Cliff Jones) and four behinds. Canterbury started slowly and was 1-12 down after Chris O’Donnell, one of the four brothers in the team, kicked two goals in the first Bmin but it was in front (1513) at the end of the quarter and was never again headed.

Tilings looked bad for the local team when it failed to score a goal, there were seven successive behinds or outer goals worth just one point, in the second quarter with kickers such as Guthrie remarkably off line. But similar dominance in the third quarter brought four goals, ample to see the team through. Despite some good efforts by the O’Donnells (including the captain-coach, Mike O’Donnell, who played the last two 15min quarters while concussed, Wellington was decisively outplayed. Auckland showed much better combination than Wellington to win by 34 (4, 10) to 12 (2,-) with the goals kicked by Steve Still (2),

Paul Anderson and Ken McKay. Bernie and Chris O’Donnell managed to kick six-pointers for Wellington. The title-holder did, however, lapse a little after leading 15-0 at the end of the first quarter, and both the opposition’s goals came in the final spell.

On the whole, Auckland looked a better side than Canterbury in the first game of the tournament and the 49 (7, 7) to 30 (4, 6) win represented a fairly comfortable margin.

Canterbury found most trouble with brilliant Auckland players such as Roger Bannister, who took the outstanding mark of the day, Barry Rodgers and the big ruckman, Darryl Owens, and

the backline was very strong.

Rodgers kicked three of the Auckland goals with Bannister (2), Owens and Greg Cotter getting the others. Simm (2), McLean and Guthrie were successful for the South Island side, and these two together with the wing, Andrew Pedley, and Mark O’Sullivan, were among the team’s best players.

But Simm is still confident that Canterbury can topple Auckland today and he points to th'e fact that his team marginally out-scored the North Islanders in the last three quarters after a sluggish start which had the locals trailing 20-0 after the first 15min.