After 25 years, Burnside gets Park big game

Press, 14 May 1982, Page 28

After 25 years, Burnside gets Park big game

However it fares in its Cup match against Linwood at Lancaster Park tomorrow, the day will be a big one for the Burnside Rugby Club. It will be the first time in the club’s 25 years that its senior side has" had the main game on the oval, a reward for the big improvement the team has shown this season. If Bumside should, win, the day would be even more notable, as Burnside has never beaten Linwood at the senior level. The Burnside coach, lan Rodger, said yesterday that his side was very conscious of the fact that it was playing the day’s main game for the first time and he was hopeful that the “butterflies

would not be flapping too much.”

Last Saturday when Burnside was desperately unlucky to lose td Marist — a lastminute try giving Marist its 10-7 victory — Burnside was without five of its regular players, and the figure will be at least three this week.

However, Mr Rodger does not see this as a big problem. “For the first time we have a depth in the club which makes it possible to bring up senior B players whose only shortcoming is inexperience," he said.

Mr Rodger said that he had a lot of respect for Linwood — “a side which has worked quietly to get where it has" but if Burnside applied itself as well as it

had done in its games to date, the result could be close.

“Given the right breaks I believe we can win, but the boys know that win or lose this is a big occasion for them and the club.” he said. “We don’t want to have to wait another 25 years to get a main game."

There has been a ground change for another senior game tomorrow.

Because extensions — which include new changing facilities — to the New Brighton club’s rooms are not quite completed, the match between New Brighton and University B has been transferred from Rawhiti Domain to Ham 1.