Challenging finish to Canty’s rugby season

Press, 8 September 1982, Page 32

Challenging finish to Canty’s rugby season

KEVIN McMENAMIN

The Canterbun’ rugby team is very much at the crossroads as it looks ahead to its four remaining matches this season, the most important, of course, being the Ranfurlv Shield challenge against Wellington on Saturday week. The side has been up and down all season and while the record of nine wins from 13 games — four out of six in the national championship — is reasonably good it will need to win three of the last four to achieve the objective set by the coach, Alex Wyllie, of a top three placing in the first division.

In this regard, next Sunday’s game against Bay of Plenty at Lancaster Park will be crucial. Bay of Plenty has earned new respect since its great win against the Wallabies last week and a good win here would be a boost to Canterbury’s shield hopes. The outcome of the shield challenge is, really, anybody’s guess. Canterbury has a poor record at Athletic Park in recent years and Wellington is too good a side, and one which has learnt the hard way what shield rugby is all about, to suggest anything but a peak performance is going to succeed where the other challengers this year have failed. After Wellington, Canterbury has two further home games, against the championship front-runners, Counties, which will be even harder to beat if the shield

should be at stake, and then Wairarapa-Bush. not a side to be underestimated either.

The 50-50 record Canterbury had on its North Island tour, which ended with a sound defeat at the hands of Manawatu last Saturday, was barely good enough for a side which had promised more.

It was no disgrace to be beaten by a side which played as well as Manawatu did but the tragedy of the tour was that the first game, against Hawke’s Bay, should be lost. Canterbury should not only have won here; it should have won in a canter.

The between times victories against Auckland and North Auckland were impressive enough, especially at Auckland where the Canterbury backs showed themselves capable of pulling a game out of the fire by bold and imaginative football. The side as a whole, though, should have developed more on tour and this must be a worry to Mr Wyllie as he ponders the hard three weeks ahead. There are some players who did not measure up, and

whether Mr Wyllie is game enough to look elsewhere at this late stage remains to be seen.

The loss, through a nonrugby injury, of Tony Thorpe at the very start of the tour was a severe blow. This meant that Mr Wyllie had to play the two remaining locks, Albert Anderson and Kerry Mitchell, in all four games and this was asking a lot of them.

Thorpe is expected to have the plaster removed from his leg next week and Mr Wyllie has not ruled out the possibility that he could still return to the side, possibly even in time for the Wellington game. Thorpe is a lean young man who should not take long to regain full fitness.

However, locks is just one of Mr Wyllie’s problem areas. He has still to settle on a first-choice back-line, and the backs are going to be very important against Wellington. There is good reason to believe that Canterbury will be the equal of, if not better than, Wellington in the forwards. A better assessment was made by some of the Manawatu forwards last Sat-

urday night, and they still had fresh memories of their Wellington encounter the previous week-end. The Wellington backs can not be dismissed so easily, although it was interesting to hear the Manawatu view that if Tu Wyllie can be rattled — as Manawatu succeeded in doing in its 28-9 win — then Wellington “falls apart.” Half-back and wings are the two positions where the Canterbury line is struggling. Mr Wyllie clearly has a lot of faith in the young Glenmark half-back, Bruce Deans, and there is no doubt that Deans has his fair share of his family's rugby ability. But what Canterbury needs at the moment is a half-back with a long, snappy pass and Deans has yet to develop one. There is even a suspicion that he might make a better full-back than halfback, although such a move would bring him into direct competition with his older brother, Robbie.

Steve Scott was, to some extent, made the scapegoat for the Hawke’s Bay loss. It was not one of Scott’s better games, but he deserves the

chance to redeem himself and Scott is still, when he wants to be. one of the country’s best passing halfbacks. Injury reduced Garry Hoopers effectiveness on the tour and this left the side with an alarming lack of speed on the wings. It is a shortcoming which could be disastrous against Wellington. In other positions, though, the side is coming along quite well. Robbie Deans did not kick for goal with his usual Lancaster Park accuracy, but he must surely be the steadiest full-back in New Zealand at present. Steadiness might not be Victor Simpson’s forte, but he has something which puts him in a class all of his own. Simpson can be counted on, virtually every time he receives the ball, to beat at least two men, his only problem then being to find someone to whom he can pass.

Wayne Smith has still to recapture his brilliant form of previous seasons, but it might not be far off. His association with the All Blacks may have made him a shade cautious, and the conditions, both weather and playing, were of little help to him in his two games on the tour.

kieran Keane, Warwick Taylor and Craig Green all

plaved well in various games and it will probably be a photo-finish as to which of the three gets to play at second five-eighths in the shield challenge. Taylor just might have the most'to offer.

The tour was important for Dale Atkins, and he might have done enough to push himself to the forefront of selection for the New Zealand Maoris tour to Wales.

Atkins has become the key man in the Canterbury scrum. He played particularly well against Auckland and although he lost out to Geoff Old at the back of the line-out, he was also Canterbury’s best forward against Manawatu.

Providing Canterbury can get through its game on Sunday without any major injuries it should be as ready as it ever will be for a shield challenge. It might not be the best Canterbury team to have challenged for the shield, but the North Island tour showed that it does have possibilities.