Lions ‘fear’ Telfer training sessions

Press, 7 May 1983, Page 64

Lions ‘fear’ Telfer training sessions

NZPA staff correspondent London The British Lions coach, Jim Telfer, let his reputation as a hard taskmaster slip a little yesterday as his 30 players prepared to board the Air New Zealand jet which will land in Auckland this morning. The Scot revealed that he did not intend to put the Lions through their first New Zealand training session until tomorrow morning. Today will be a day off. The first session will take place in Wanganui, the team’s destination after passing through Auckland.

They will have exactly a week in the city to train and recover from jet lag before playing their first tour game against the second division side next Saturday. Some of the Lions players have voiced trepidation about the prospect of Telfer training sessions with the England lock, Maurice Colclough, relating that his formula seemed to consist of “hard work, harder work — and bloody hard work.” Mr Telfer went a little way towards rejecting that theory yesterday: “I make top players work as hard as internationals should expect.

It’s the only way if your goal is success, as ours is,” he said. The Lions party flew out of Gatwick airport making few predictions about the outcome of the four-test series with the All Blacks. But they appeared well aware of the task ahead of them in the shape of 18 matches in 10 weeks — with several tough provincial fixtures to be played in midweek — such as those against Canterbury, Auckland and Wellington. “Difficult” and “hard” were the words most used by the manager, Willie John

Mcßride, and the captain, Ciaran Fitzgerald. Mr Mcßride would say only that he believed his team “could win the series” but he made it plain that his side would not become a replica of its sullen 1977 predecessor if things started going wrong. “I don’t want any moaners on this trip. I don’t want any complaints about the tour being too long, too wet or too hard. “I never found anything but delight in touring. These players can have the same experience if-they play hard and work at making friends

and enjoying all that New Zealand has to offer.” The 1983 team has not the cluster of stars of the Lions sides of the 1970 s and with the first test only seven matches into the tour, the first priority will be to sort out the strongest fifteen. The prop, Graham Price, the hooker, Fitzgerald, the lock, Maurice Colclough, and the flanker, Jeff Squire, are, perhaps, the only forwards certain of selection for that test at Lancaster Park on June 4. And in the backs, only the half-back, Terry Holmes, the goalkicking first five-

eighths, Ollie Campbell, and the right wing, John Carleton, appear certainties. These players, along with the vast experience of Messrs Mcßride and Telfer, are the aces in the Lions pack and given their strengths, the prospect is for rugby played without too many frills. The Lions are likely to keep many of their key players out of the tour opener against Wanganui and keep them in reserve for the tougher game against Auckland on Wednesday week. But they will try to give

Colclough, very much the cornerstone of the pack, every opportunity to reach match fitness. He has not played since suffering a crippling knee injury in January and has spent much time since in a Royal Air Force rehabilitation centre. Doubts also hover around the fitness of Holmes, who has struggled with a shoulder injury for much of the season, and the England centre, Clive Woodward, and the Scottish first fiveeighths, John Rutherford, who have been sidelined with similar complaints.