N.Z. rugby great, but bitter memories

Press, 14 November 1981, Page 64

N.Z. rugby great, but bitter memories

NZPA London The former Lions prop, Fran Cotton, has some good things to say about New Zealand rugby but bitter memories of the 1977 tour in his autobiography published yesterday. “New Zealand is the rugby country that I admire above all others for the very simple reason that everything about their rugby is correct,” he says in “Fran.” Young players were taught the basics of the game before they were put into limited competition against players of similar age and weight. New Zealand accepted the need for quality coaching

and it occupied a more important position within the game there than in Britain, Cotton said.

Players, coaches and selectors came up through the system and had to prove themselves at one level before moving to the next. “All Blacks sides are always supremely fit, have total command of the basic skills whether individual or group, and succeed in plying the game at a pace which constantly stretches the opposition,” Cotton says. “On their recent tour of Wales they showed just how to succeed at rugby — to win the ball quickly, move it into open space and support.

"That is how simple the game is but we have complicated it to such an extent that we have lost track of the original principles.” Cotton, who began his career for England against the Fijians in an under-25 match at Twickenham in 1970, said the British in 1971 and 1974 were in the position of having a pack of forwards capable of winning more than fifty per cent of the ball, and three-quarters who could translate that superiority into points. “Since then British rugby has become so absorbed with how many different ways there are to win the ball that the use of it has been foreot-

ten,” he says. “We should thank the All Blacks for reminding us, as well as exposing the stupidity of changing the tackle law which caused the ‘pileup’ and three years of sterility in British rugby.” Cotton, whose rugby career ended early this year after hamstring trouble caused him to leave the field during the Wales v. England match at Cardiff, played on three British Lions tours and was in the England side that beat the All Blacks at Auckland in 1973.

Cotton has few happy memories of the 1977 Lions tour: "The All Blacks had gone too long without win-

ning a major test series, having lost to South Africa in 1970 and again in 1976 and to the British Lions in 1971,” he says.

“Even though 1971 had been a bitter pill to take, by the time the Lions returned in 1977 the New Zealand rugby public — through the recent advent of television in South Africa — were more concerned about the apparent ill-treatment of their players both on the field and in the media during the 1976 tour.

“The 1977 British Lions were on the receiving end of a backlash, and the ill feeling towards us was so intense that at times one had

to pinch oneself to believe that, as an amateur player whose reason for playing is first and foremost enjoyment, we were being subjected to the kind of abuse and ill manners displayed by certain sections of the New Zealand rugby public.” Cotton says the Lions were greeted with jeers and boos and shouts of: “Go home you Pommie bastards.”

“In 1977, rugby in NewZealand was bitter and sour and we tourists were given the uncomfortable feeling that we were not really wanted. It was so untypical of a country noted for its hospitality and love of rugby.”