Lions stumble to 21-12 win

Press, 27 June 1983, Page 19

Lions stumble to 21-12 win

NZPA staff correspondent Whangarei The British Lions rugby team faces a plethora of problems after stumbling to a 21-12 win over North Auckland at Okara Park on Saturday.

Injuries to two key players and a scrappy and frequently unsavoury match were simply the last things the Lions needed seven days before the third test. Through their own failings and the occasional illegal intervention of the North Aucklanders, the Lions were unable to control and distribute possession tidily. So deprived, the Lions’ “new look” back division was unable to make an impression on the match. Tries in the third and tenth minutes of the second half to Robert Ackerman and Jim Calder allowed the Lions to establish a matchwinning advantage, but during the rest of the half, as in the first, their play lacked motivation, combination, character, and finesse. North Auckland launched a welter of counter-attacks, one resulting in a try to lan Phillips in the twenty-fifth minute of the second half, which narrowed the scores to 15-12 in favour of the Lions. A stumbling and disjoined first half had seen the teams tied 3-3, at half-time. When the margin had broadened to 12 points with Calder and Ackerman’s tries, it had seemed the Lions were beginning to set-

tie into a pattern. But they were unable to control possession or emulate the fire of their opposites. That fire allowed the Northerners to compete with, the tourists, maintain their momentum, and to come back undemoralised after they had slipped 12 points behind. The attitude might also have accounted as well for the zealousness with which they had contested possession — not always within the limits of the rules — and for the instances of illtemper which soured a match with only earthy spectator appeal. Fred and Kawhena Woodman, lan Dunn, Charles Going, and David Haynes will be remembered for their contributions to this match long after the performances of their opposites are forgotten. Dunn, the perfect pivot, controlled the possession won by the home side and inspired the mixed bag of passing movements the North Aucklanders sprang on the tourists. Haynes and Going were sharper in midfield than their vaunted opposites while the attacking power of the brother wings was unlimited. Perhaps the best back,

however, was the Northland scrum-half, Chris Hull, a compact ball of fire whose efforts on attack and in defence were at the heart of the home side’s performance. Among the Lions, few players performed with credit. Jim Calder was the loose-forward force round whom the tourists’ ability to win second-phase ball was based. John Rutherford, playing out of position at right centre, and Robert Ackerman, out of position also on the left wing, were both sound performers. The Lions’ coach, Jim Telfer, said afterwards, “It was just a rough, untidy game. The line-outs were a mess sometimes with bodies all over the place. That is a thing we have not sorted out yet, and I don’t know if we ever will.” His lot in the next week is to mould the Lions into a test match unit: a task to be undertaken without Terry Holmes, lan Stephens, Jeff Squire, Robert Norster, and Nigel Melville — the first* four all members of the tourists’ first test side and Melville the player who was expected to provide the answer to the Lions’ halfback problems.