Late start for Rushton

Press, 13 February 1982, Page 16

Late start for Rushton

By

JOHN COFFEY

Alan Rushton has played an important role in New Zealand’s recent rugby league test triumphs, but he faces an uphill task in his bid to gain inclusion in the Kiwi squad to tour Australia and Papua New Guinea later this year. The second half of last season was not a happy time for Rushton. He was not only stripped of what had been a most successful captaincy of Canterbury, but also dropped from the Canterbury side, and left out of the South Island team. However, worse was to follow. Rushton collided with a Marist-Western Suburbs opponent in Hornby’s final club match of the winter, and the repercussions were severe. An arm was broken in two places, one of the bones spearing through to dislocate another.

A 20cm plate was inserted in the arm, and will probably not be removed for another two years. An infection later set in and, after serious consideration was given to more surgery or a bone graft, the arm was put back in plaster. Rushton was cleared to resume his occupation at the freezing works yesterday, about five months after the mishap occurred

■ But he has not been idle, other than spending some relaxing days at Lancaster Park during the first-class cricket season. Rushton has been running on the roads and a few weeks ago he was able to recommence weight training.

A specialist's examination on March 4 will decide when Rushton can resume football. He will have to be content to sit on the sidelines when the first South Island Tooth Cup trial is held at the Show

Grounds this evening, although he has not yet discounted the possibility of appearing in the second trial at Greymouth on February 28.

Rushton has been New Zealand’s first-choice hooker in most seasons since he scored a try in his debut — the first Kiwi hooker to do so — against Australia in a World Cup match at Auckland in 1977. Provincial and island panels have frequently

preferred him in his alternative position of prop. “I am keen to get back into representative football and would like to make the team to tour Australia. That is what I have been building up to in my pre-season training,” Rushton said. His resolve is increased by the unhappy memories of the 1978 series at Brisbane and Sydney, when the world champion Kangaroos outclassed New Zealand for ail but the first 45 minutes of the third test. Since then New Zealand has greatly improved its world standing. The Kiwis proved their competitiveness by drawing the series in Britain and France in 1980 and last year France was thrashed in two tests at Auckland. “I like to think that Kiwis will do very well this year, and I very much want to be part of it,” Rushton said. With a background of 13 tests, and a record of consistency in and out of the scrums that has obviously more than satisfied the New Zealand coach (Ces Mountford), Rushton must be conceded every chance of attaining his goal.