Leuluai out of action

Press, 19 November 1982, Page 36

Leuluai out of action

NZPA Leeds The New Zealand test centre, James Leuluai, had an operation yesterday to wire a fractured jaw suffered while playing for his English club, Hull, against the touring Australian rugby league side on Wednesday. Leuluai, in his second season with Hull, will be out of action until the new year after coming off second best with an attempted high tackle on Kangaroo’s second rower, Wayne Pearce. He tried to take the powerful-running Pearce shoulder high but was brushed off and hit the ground heavily. Leuluai admitted after his side’s 7-13 loss to the Kangaroos that his tackling tech-

nique had been faulty and he had failed to get his head out of the way. Leuluai, part of the dashing Kiwi test trio at Hull of himself, the full-back, Gary’ Kemble, and the wing, Dane O’Hara, was up against the crack Australian centres, Steve Rogers and Mai Meninga. O’Hara came close to scoring two tries against the allconquering Australians. Just before the five-eighths, David Topliss, became only the sixth player to score on tour against the Australians, O’Hara was cut down a metre short of the tryline by his opposing wing, Eric Grothe, late in the first half. Ten minutes after the interval he was called back and penalised after tapping

ahead and diving over the Australian line. The three Hull-based Kiwis are just part of a New Zealand player invasion in Britain. At the last count there were 26 Kiwis playing with English clubs including the test captain, Graeme West (Wigan), Gordon Smith and Gary Prohm (Hull Kingston Rovers), Kevin Tamati (Widnes), Clayton Friend and Dean Bell (Carlisle), Shane Varley (Workington) and Billy Kells (Bradford Northern). This adds to the Sydneybased contingent of Mark Graham, Mark Broadhurst, Olsen Filipaina, Dane and Kurt Sorenson, Fred Ah Kuoi, and a recent addition, Bruce Gall.