Sorensens unlikely to play for Kiwis

Press, 20 October 1981, Page 36

Sorensens unlikely to play for Kiwis

By

JOHN COFFEY

It seems unlikely that the New Zealand rugby league team will have the use of the outstanding Sorensen brothers for the test matches against the Kangaroos in Australia next July, However, the N.Z.R.L. secretary (Mr Ross Williams) said from Auckland yesterday that an approach would be made to the CronullaSutherland (Sydney) club to have them released if such a request was made by the New Zealand selectors. Unlike the other Kiwis 'i

playing in Sydney, Mark Graham, Mark Broadhurst, Fred Ah Kuoi and Olsen Filipaina, neither Dane nor Kurt Sorensen has a contractual clause allowing for their release for test appearances. To compound the problem, Mr Williams said that the Cronulla secretary (Mr Arthur Winn) had indicated a marked reluctance to clear the Sorensens, when he was recently in Auckland with the Cronulla squad on an end-of-seaso'n trip. The spectacular style of football and very satisfying results achieved by the Kiwis

against Britain and France over the last season or two have made them a distinct threat to Australia’s world supremacy. New Zealand has won twice and drawn another of its last four tests with Britain, and decisively won three of its last four matches against France without the assistance of the Sorensen brothers. In doing so, it has developed a fine team spirit and the, other players might not warmly welcome any “outsiders” who were not keen to tour Britain and France last

year. The Kiwi coach and selectors will be appointed early next month. The panel will then confer and recommend which expatriate New Zealanders be placed on standby and how many others comprise the touring party. It is virtually certain that Graham, Broadhurst, Ah Kuoi and Filipaina will be chosen for the tests at Brisbane on July 3 and Sydney on July 17, but they will not be retained for the Papua New Guinea section of the itinerary. James Leuluai and Dane

O’Hara, who have started three-year terms with the Hull club in England, will be available for the whole tour, Mr Williams said. They and the three Kiwis spending off-seasons in Britain, Shane Varley, Gary Kemble and Ray Baxendale, will return to New Zealand when their club commitments are completed. That could be as late as mid-May if their clubs qualified for the Challenge Cup or premiership finals. Only the test dates in Australia have been decided so far, but Mr Williams

expects that the tour will begin in northern Queensland, advance to Brisbane for the first test, and then take in the stronger country districts of New South Wales before .the second test in Sydney. A third test will be held in Australia later in the season if the first two are shared. The Papua New Guinea matches will probably comprise one provincial game and a test. Papua New Guinea will make a return visit to this country in 1983, with one test on a tentative three-week itinerary.