Man tipped as next coach believes N.Z. can beat Wales

Press, 15 July 1980, Page 28

Man tipped as next coach believes N.Z. can beat Wales

PA Auckland The man being tipped in some quarters to take the All Blacks to Wales, the former Counties coach, Mr Hiwi Tauroa, believes New Zealand has the players to beat the Welsh.

“I’m sure of that. It is just a matter of attitude and how one goes about the whole job,” he said in Auckland yesterday. Mr Tauroa said that the present coach, Mr Eric Watson, had got the forwards up to a “high pitch, but the backs aren’t operating as part of the unit. “We’ve got backs who can run, but we don’t seem to be encouraging them,” he said.

The present Counties coach, Mr Pat Walsh, is another who believes that the battered All Blacks can beat Wales when they meet in just 15 weeks. “But the follow-up now to the losses in Australia is going to be crucial,” he said. “There has got to be a lot of talk to decide where we went wrong and whether we change the coach or tell him what his mistakes were." Mr Walsh believes that the All Blacks pattern of play needs to be looked at urgently, and, he says, hard questions have got to be asked, such as:

Why didn’t the team vary its play' more? Why were there so many mistakes?

Where was the support when a player made a break?

In spite of the gloom after the crushing third test loss at Sydney, Mr Walsh sees some cause for optimism: “After all, when the team came back from England 12 months ago we thought they were champions.

“You don’t toss the towel in just because you get beaten in a series. The ability is there all right — it’s just that it hasn’t been put together.” Perhaps surprisingly, Mr Walsh thinks that the team that plays Wales will be only slightly changed from the one beaten in Australia. That is a view shared by a former Auckland coach and ex-AU Black, Mr Eric Boggs, who says he would like to see “three, or four changes in important places.” He is confident of a win lin Wales, but he says there

will have to be a change in both the selections and the team’s attitude.

“We need to replace some of the players who have been playing the game through the media rather than on the paddock,” said Mr Boggs. The selectors, he says, must concentrate on:

Building a forward pack that can win second phase possession — “Too often our tight forwards take the ball into rucks and mauls and lose it to the opposition,” Finding a loose forward with speed who can lead the pack to the loose ball — “It will be vital to get to any break-downs behind the Welsh advantage line,” and Picking inside backs with penetration, flair and the ability to beat a man—“l see the game against Wales as a challenge which could bring the best out of the New Zealanders,” said Mr Boggs. “We have got the players to do the job, provided the selection blunders are remedied and the team has a new attitude.”