Dubious tries help French to late win

Press, 13 June 1984, Page 54

Dubious tries help French to late win

From

JOHN BROOKS,

in Dunedin.

If the French rugby players were known mimics, they would have been suspected of imitating their currently crippled coach, Jacques Fouroux, in the match against Otago at Carisbrook yesterday.

The tourists largely second string side limped uncertainly to a 20-10 victory on the strength of two lucky tries, after being behind for three-quarters of the game. The try which the Otago coach, Laurie Mains, identified as the knock-out blow for a gallant home side was scored in controversial circumstances by the youthful French half-back, Henri Sanz.

The ball squirted out the blind side of a scrum on the Otago line, and Sanz dived on it as the Otago players looked the other way. Mr Mains said that in the melee preceding the incident the referee, Colin Gregan (Waikato), inadvertently kicked the ball from a French player’s hand in goal, therefore the scrum should have been put down five metres from the goalline. He also doubted that the ball had been correctly hooked. The try scored by Sanz was scored five minutes from the end, at a stage when France was clinging to a tenuous 12-10 lead. Two minutes later the captain for the day, Pierre Lacans, wrestled his way clear of a maul and ran 35m to the goal-line for another try, while most of the Otago players held off, apparently for the whistle to blow for another infringement.

On this occasion, however, Mr Gregan’s whistle did not shrill and, indeed, he was exceptionally kind to French forwards who frequently invaded no-mans land in the line-outs before the ball had come to hand and who flung themselves willy-nilly on the Otago side of rucks. France was

penalised 11 times to Otago’s seven. On a fine, clear day and on a perfect pitch, Otago made a splendid start, leading 10-0 at half-time, after scoring the first try of the tour against the Tricolours. Although constantly pushed back in the scrums, and conceding height in the forwards, the Otago pack broke even in set play possession and showed what Mr

Mains called “real guts” in absorbing a sustained French drive in the third quarter. Chief among the heroes of the home team’s pack was the loose head prop, Steve Hotton, who as well as slaving away furiously' in the tight, had sufficient anticipation to bob up in an impromptu move and put his left wing, Ralph Milne, across the line for a try. But the effort expended in holding a renewed French challenge after half-time told on Otago, and the forwards allowed the burly Marc Andrieu to slip through from the blind side of a scrum and score untouched on the open side. Guy Laporte’s conversion put the French ahead for the first time after an hour’s play. France fielded a patchwork side which took an agonisingly long time to put its act together. It took Lacans and his blue shirts

25min to cross the Otago 22m line for the first time. Then just when the forwards were showing belated cohesion by winning three consecutive rucks, Laporte, the most experienced of the backs, dropped a straightforward pass. Andrieu showed his liking for the Kamikaze cult by

attempting to run with the ball from a perilous defensive position, and was flattened for his pains by Andy Hollander, who had an excellent game as an Otago flanker. Then the garotting of Mike Gibson, who just had to be a centre with a name like that, gave Otago one of its six chances at goal. David Hamilton, a full-back who has played only three

clubs games this year because of injuries, kicked one of his two penalty goals. Patrice Lagisquet, who seems certain to be France’s right wing against the All Blacks on Saturday, retired after 52min with a blow to the thigh and little Sanz, who was terrier-like in his persistence to keep the ball moving, received a blow on the right shoulder. The men who contributed mainly to France’s halting recovery were the loose forwards, Lacans, Jean-Charles Orso and Jacques Gratton. The latter, wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy was extremely useful at the break-downs, and with Orso chiming in tellingly, France wrenched a clear advantage on second phase possession after half-time. However, although Otago’s pack was shunted about, David Kirk, the halfback, and Dean Kenny, the first five-eighths, cleared the ball smartly or used it

cleverly themselves. They were reliable on defence, too. Afterwards, the French manager, Yves Noe, and the coach, Mr Fouroux, expressed pleasure that the touring side would go into Saturday’s test with four straight wins on tour. The French coach denied that his players cheated at the line-out and ruck — “We just take up different positions.”

However, Mr Mains, while conceding ruefully that the French probably deserved to win, "said he could not remember one line-out in which there was not some blatant movement by the French before the throw in had been completed. “And there was no attempt by the French to stay onside at the rucks and mauls.” Scorers:

France: Andrieu, Sanz, Lacans tries; Laporte penalty goal, dropped goal, conversion.

Otago: Milne try; Hamilton two penalty goals.