Canty rugby coach plays it cool

Press, 30 August 1980, Page 60

Canty rugby coach plays it cool

By

JOHN BROOKS

One man who does not believe in counting his chickens before they are hatched is the chief Canterbury rugby coach, Mr Gerald Wilson.

The side he coaches in collaboration with Mr Neil Cornelius should pick up two national competition points with ease at Lancaster Park oval this afternoon, but Mr Wilson does not read too much into South Canterbury’s lamentable record of nine straight losses in the first division this season. “Our record against South Canterbury in recent years has not been good,” he said yesterday. "We might have won the non-championship games well enough, but our wins in the first-division matches have not been convincing. “I have vivid memories of that 10-9 win in Timaru last year — we were very, very lucky. We had a few more points to spare the season before, but most of them came in one 10-minute splurge.”

Mr Wilson, therefore, is not regarding the match from the point of view of the opposing team’s dismal run. It has had six scores of between 30 and 40 against it, and lost to Canterbury at Fraser Park, 0-29, earlier in the winter. The Canterbury side needs to restore its confidence after its loss to Wellington last Saturday. Mr Wilson reported that the spirit in the side was still good, but the players had felt frustrated because they had the Wellington game in their grasp and it had got away from them.

In its pursuit of a moraleboosting win, the home team will look to its All Black first five-eighths, Wayne Smith, to' provide .the impetus for an assertive backline performance. It will be an important game for Smith, who has been out of rugby for two months with his hamstring injury, and he will be tested by South Canterbury’s lively loose forwards.

i The visitors will be playing their final first-division match, and they will have nothing to lose by gambling on a wholesale attacking policy. However, it is doubtful whether they have the resources to do justice to such an approach. Canterbury will probably have too much speed in the three-quarter line, and superior strength and skill among the tight forwards. John Ashworth, the All Black prop, has been pronounced fit to play, and will take his place at loose head. One of Mr Wilson’s bugbears is the staggered nature of the national championship schedule. Manawatu, Wellington and Counties have 12, 10 and eight points respectively, but Canterbury, with its late start, languishes on two. “Played two, won one, lost one — that’s our record,” he said. “Whichever way you look at it we’re at the bottom of the tree. There is only one way to go.”