Stokes happy with season in Britain

Press, 19 February 1983, Page 60

Stokes happy with season in Britain

By

JOHN COFFEY

The globe-trotting New Zealand front-row forward. Gerard Stokes, returned to Christchurch yesterday thoroughly convinced that the five months he spent in British rugby league had been beneficial to his own football. Stokes earned his blazer pocket - the modern-day version of a club cap - with Workington Town in Cumbria in the British first division. appearing in 22 matches.

Although Stokes suffered strained ligaments in a knee two weeks ago, he said that he had regained his fitness and was looking forward to resuming training with his Eastern Suburbs club.

He was released by Workington Town a little earlier than his contract stipulated so that he could accompany his wife, who is expecting their second child, back to New Zealand. “It was very decent of them, a typical gesture from a good club," Stokes said.

In the last eight months Stokes has toured Australia and Papau New Guinea with the Kiwis and experienced football in the north of England.

Stokes said that Workington Town used him in a traditional prop forward's role, with emphasis on scrummaging and “taking the ball up" in the close exchanges. His presence had a marked, and favourable, effect on the club's fortunes, in set play. In the match before Stokes arrived Workington lost 30 of the 37 scrums to Hull Kingston Rovers; in Stoke's debut the figures were turned around to a 20-8 success over the Warrington pack. But Workington, as with most promoted clubs, is find-

ing the going tough in the first division. It is at present lying third from the bottom of a competition from which four teams are relegated each season.

“Very few of the players had experience of first division football," Stokes said. "Some also have a lot to learn because they do not start playing rugby league until they are 16 or 17 years of age and are rugby union converts."

Workington’s appointed coach, Paul Charlton, was sacked in mid-season and another former British international back, Ike Southward, took over in a caretaker capacity.

Stokes made one notable deviation from the accepted style of British coaching by concentrating on his sprint work to combat the hindrance of consistently sticky playing fields. “The days of the big. lumbering forwards are virtually over in Britain. There are some some magnificent ball handlers about, but they are just bludgers in other aspects of the game. The Australians really opened British eyes to speed," he said. Suggestions that the big contingent of New Zealanders in England be brought together as a squad to oppose the Kangaroos had some support, Stokes said, but the Australian itinerary had already been fixed. The thought has not died altogether, though, and a “Kiwi XIII” might in the future take the place of the old “Other Nationalities” sides which regularly met England and Wales.

But Stokes will not be part of any such move. He is content to limit his British experience to one term, and to seek further representative honours in this country.