Lions may take time to develop

Press, 12 April 1983, Page 40

Lions may take time to develop

PA Auckland The British Lions side may take time to develop into a team good enough to beat the All Blacks in New Zealand this year, said Ray Williams, the secretary of the Welsh Rugby Union, in Auckland yesterday. Mr Williams, who visited New Zealand in 1970 when he was the Welsh union’s director of coaching.— and had considerable influence on the coaching movement in Nevf Zealand and Australia— will spend almost a fortnight in New Zealand discussing the development

of junior rugby. He will visit several centres but his main duty will be to address the annual meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Union in Wellington on Thursday. Mr Williams said: “We do not think at the moment that the Lions are an outstanding side, mainly because of the very even spread of players among the four home unions, eight each from Scotland, Ireland and Wales and sixtfrom England“This does not mean that the Lions will not develop

into a very good side, but the most successful Lions sides in recent times have been built round a successful side in the Five Nations championship. “This will present a very interesting challenge for Willie John Mcßride and Jim Telfer (manager and coach respectively). “They have some very good players, but there are one or two question marks about some of the players. Maurice Colclough, for example, has been injured. He has been getting fit working out in the gymnasium and lifting weights, but that is

not the same thing as playing rugby, and working as well on fitness in the gymnasium.” Mr Williams said, however, that Robert Norster, the Welsh lock, could be a success in New Zealand: "He is one of the very few two-handed line-out catchers in Britain at the moment. “The Lions will also have very strong half-backs, especially in Terry Holmes and Ollie Campbell. is now a very, very’good player. When Gareth Edwards retired we thought we would never see

another player like him. Yet I wonder whether some aspects of Holmes’s play are as good, if not better, than Edwards’. “But the Lions will not start with a predominant style of play. I have mixed feelings about whether the Lions will win the test series, and am not prepared to make a prediction,” said Mr Williams. “I do not know how good the All Blacks are at the moment, but if they can produce a side as go*d as the one which played Wales in 1980 I would not give this Lions team much chance.”

Mr Williams mentioned the Lions back row of John Beattie, lain Paxton, Jim Calder and Jeff Squire as being very strong, and said that Graham Price, the senior Welsh prop, was holding his form well. “He was dropped from the Wales team, and only got back when there was an injury. That was the piece of motivation Graham needed, and his form against Ireland was the best he has shown for three years.” Mr Williams is in New Zealand at the invitation of the NXR.U.