Canterbury loses again, but pride restored

Press, 22 September 1980, Page 17

Canterbury loses again, but pride restored

By

JOHN BROOKS

A novel method of preparation by the Canterbury rugby team almost brought it the rich reward of the Co unties scalp in the last home game of the season at Lancaster Park Oval o n Saturday.

The avoidance of physical contact in the pre-match training runs generated a new spirit of purpose and aggression among the Canterbury players. Although they lost, 15-21, to last season’s Lion first-divi-sion champion, they entertained and excited a crowd of about 9000 by boldly attacking their celebrated rivals.

It was a bruising and spectacular game, played at a fast clip on a sunbathed pitch. Each side was eager to ‘win: Canterbury to prevent its string of losses from rising to four and Counties because it cherishes the thought of achieving the rare triple slam on a South Island tour. As a result, the match was fraught with tension and skirmishes punctuated the cut and thrust of the game’s middle stages.

Canterbury led, 12-6, at half-time and although a fit and confident Counties made a winning break early in the second spell, a match-saving six-pointer by the home team remained a possibility throughout the hectic final minutes.

The volatile Counties coach, Pat Walsh, admitted making a . mistake in devising the team’s approach to the gam e .

“I told them to relax: I said think of Southland as the big one on this tour,” he said. “I can see now that was wrong.”

Andy Dalton, the Counties captain, said his side had had to work hard to finish ahead of players whose efforts belied their playing record.

Don Hayes, Canterbury’s skipper, said he was proud to be associated with players who had revealed “plenty of guts” when .the going was tohghest. The chief Canterbury coach, Gerald Wilson, came up with the new training method in a desperate bid to restore the team’s plummeting pride. “I started wondering how to lift the side from rock bottom immediately after we went down to Southland last Saturday,” he said. “So Neil

(Cornelius) and I got the boys to concentrate purely on handling the ball during the build-up. There was no physical contact, no rucking, and it’s hard to keep Canterbury forwards away from that.”

The results were rewarding. Counties has a reputation for being the most attractive side in New Zealand and not because of its multistriped jersey and scarlet shorts. But Canterbury was unrecognisable from the pallid team of the previous week and the rejuvenated players probably surprised themselves with their dash and daring. Randal Scott had a fine attacking game on. the right wing, Ross Gibson made light of the many bad passes he received on the left to pound away at the Counties defence, and Victor Simpson was a cheeky, darting runner at centre. Even more effective was the 19-year-old loose forward, Dale Atkins, whose remarkable ability to sniff out scoring chances led to Canterbury’s sole try. A vigorous attacker, he startled Counties with determined

thrusts, the best of which carried him past several defenders after a clean catch and an even cleaner break from a line-out He was a popular winner of the Fletcher Humphries "player of the day” award. Not so impressive was the Canterbury cover defence, which was laboured at times and was caught napping when Counties made its forward move in the space of nine minutes early in the second half.

A clever cross-kick by Bruce Robertson, after evading a flying tackle by Simpson, put Dalton in the 'clear for the first try and smart use of a wide blind-side by Paul Penney gave Brett Coa-

lin an easy chance for the second. On each occasion Canterbury was concentrating its efforts elsewhere. Counties deserved its win. The side was well vied by Dalton, and John Spiers and Rod Ketels weighed in solidly, Robertson and Graeme

Taylor formed an effective midfield partnership and Tim Burcher was on the- ball at half-back. The best of the backs was Nicky Allen, whose sound judgment, sharpness of movement, and ball skills gave him the upper hand over Wayne Smtih. With the brashness of youth, Allen added to Mr Walsh’s grey hairs by running at the Canterbury loose forwards at the back of the line-out but he had the satisfaction of paving the way for a try through one of these seemingly suicidal runs. The lanky Codlin looked) jaded at full-back. His fielding was sound but his defence brittle: Randal Scott ran round him twice and Atkins bumped.him off once or twice. Robbie Deans played serviceably at fullback for Canterbury and a penalty goal from half-way and a conversion from the I side-line by him were big morale boosters for his team.

The Canterbury forwards played with renewed application. The new tight forwards, Dave White and Pat O’Byrne, were full of fire, Murray Hall snatched the game’s only tight-head from Dalton, and Hayes tackled tirelessly. Largely because of the efforts of Atkins and, to a lesser extent, Hayes, Canterbury thumped Counties in line-out possession by 23-12. The giant lock for Counties, Paul Tuoro, won some good ball but he was well matched by Graeme Higginson.

Canterbury also finished ahead in the struggle for rucked ball, 11-7, and Steve Scott dispatched it capably, suppressing his natural tendencies to scuttle off on his own. Kieran Keane made

some sharp cuts and linked well with Randal Scott to set up the try for Atkins. But although he kicked a dropped goal to open Canterbury’s core, the side might have doubled those points had Keane passed; The back-line had an overlap after the forwards had won two rolling rucks. The vexing part of the game revolved around Hank

Habraken, the veteran Counties flanker. He figured in several incidents and his face and neck were spattered with blood well before half-time. After a group punch-up, the two captains were given a warning by the referee, Alan Gormack (Southland), but the niggling did not entirely disappear.

The second half saw the extraordinary sight of Steve Scott and Alan Dawson, the Counties No. 8, locked together like a couple of wrestlers on strike while play continued merrily on the other side of the field, j Mr Gormack made some curious rulings and the crowd and both teams were mystified at different times. Canterbury once again received a big advantage in penalties, 16-7, and Dalton said later that Mr Gormack’s arms were probably sore from pointing in Canterbury’s direction. However, it was not an easy game' to control, with tempers often at flashpoint, and Mr Gormack made a genuine effort to contribute to the flow of the game. For Counties, tries by Habraken, Codlin, and Dalton, a dropped goal by Allen, and three conversions by Codlin.

For Canterbury, a try by Atkins, a dropped goal by Keane, and a conversion and two penalty goals by Deans.