All Blacks have no excuses for first tour defeat

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 38

All Blacks have no excuses for first tour defeat

From

DON CAMERON,

in Leicester

Weep not for the All Blacks. Instead raise a cheer and lift a glass to salute an All Black team that played bravely, and a Midlands side just as brave, and just as decisive and deserved a winner as the 19-13 score yesterday morning would show.

At 9-4 and 13-7 the All Blacks had the winning of the game and had the match stopped then the 17,500 roaring throats in the crowd would have paid them due tribute. But the match still had 27 minutes to go. Amid unforgettable noise and delight Midlands came straight back to score a try. Dusty Hare converted from the touchline and then with a touch of the supernatural, placed a penalty goal from 52 metres out and 16 metres touch. Then in an utterly majestic moment Hare dropped a goal from a metre inside his half and 15 metres from from touch. The All Blacks surged back with Stuart Wilson leading the way with three marvellous mid-field breaks. Steven Pokere soared away from a coun-. ter-attack, Hika Reid burst for the line and any normal man would have been

brushed aside by his bulllike charge at the try line. But by then these Midlands’ men who had played' their rugby with fire in the pack and skill in the backs were not normal men. They seemed taken with some divine kind of fury, every man throwing himself into the tackle with no thought for life or limb. The All Blacks, again with Wilson at their head, stormed again almost to the line at the left. Again the Midlands defence stretched but held over the last vital two metres. A final scrum, a final kick for touch and then the gaunt old ground erupted in total joy. The crowd cavorted everywhere. As well they might for they had seen a pulsating game, throbbing with life and speed and high endeavour.

So there was no dishonour in defeat, no moaning about the might have beens, no quibbles about the strange-

ness of playing under floodlights or with an alien referee, for Derek Bevan, a Welshman of perky manner and good rugby sense handled the game most capably. No dishonour and only the indelible memories of a game played in a vast cockpit of spectator enthusiasm and humour, a game played fairly and squarely and perhaps because floodlights sometimes deceive the eye seemingly at about half as much speed again as daytime brings. Midlands won not only because of Hare’s magic, but because they had done their homework. They offered Bob Wilkinson, supposedly a veteran draught horse, as the strong man in the middle of the line-out. They had a handy scrum, .and a quick-wittedness to stop the All Blacks’ favourite forward drives by taking the feet of the man with the ball.

Such a task is not one for the faint-hearted, but there were no men of soft mood in the Midland pack. Nick Youngs played halfback with a muscular if cumbersome vigour and Les Cusworth mixed his fiveeighths play between keen self-preservation and canny sense of when to move the ball. Outside him Clive Woodward glided along, no •longer the diffident dodger New Zealanders saw a few months ago with the Lions. Beside him Paul -Dodge stood firm as a rock, and his long spearing left-foot punts were like so many daggers thrust into the All Blacks heart. He was the man the Lions left at home for which error New Zealand should be everlastingly grateful. Sometimes Midlands moved the ball wide but most often their backline played the percentages cleverly, mixing the tactical

punt with the unexpected break At ’ 16-13 to Midlands came one of the great moments of the match — Bruce Smith and Pokere slicing deep into Midlands country at the right and from a loose ball Midlands flying away down the other side of the field and needing desperate defence to take the move five metres from the All Black line. But the fact that Pokere lost the ball with the line close rather told the story of the All Blacks’ problems. The loose forwards and the backs, especially Wayne Smith, made some slashing breaks. At other times the forwards seemed ready to crush even the stiff Midlands defence, but - at the critical moment when the right pass or the clean pickup from the ground would have opened the way there wquld be a fumble and the movement died. Against most of the sides

the All Blacks have met on this tour they would have survived these errors and probably have won handily, but for the first time they were faced by a team that was prepared to run, to stretch the defence and to tackle before the All Blacks had picked up a scoring momentum. No failures, simply a spirited All Black team meeting a side which matched them for skill and determination and spirit. It was glorious game, it deserves to live as one of the great moments in this place of sporting heroes — and it may be just the kick in the pants the All Blacks need with two internationals just around the corner. Scores.— Midlands: G. Robbins, S. Holdstock, tries; D. Hare, a

conversion, a dropped goal and 2 penalties. All Blacks: Pokere a try; Deans 3 penalties.