British rugby selectors criticised by

Press, 12 September 1984, Page 68

British rugby selectors criticised by

NZPA London Retired Welsh fullback, J.P.R. Williams, has slammed the British rugby selectors and said that they spoiled the 1983 Lions tour to New Zealand. “Why was Ciaran Fitzgerald the captain when he was fourth choice hooker? You don’t pick a captain for his ability to speak," Williams said in an interview published in the 198384 edition of the Rothmans Rugby Yearbook. The Lions lost the series, 4-0, in New Zealand. Williams added: “It’s been the same problem with Wales. Eddie Butler was hardly even a first-class number eight, let alone a Welsh “So many players are picked who are not good

enough. It’s not their fault they don’t perform well, but while they get dropped, the selectors who made the mistakes remain.” Williams said there was a “dearth of top class individuals, with the result that entertainment value has decreased. British three-quar-ter flair has gone and the French have really shown that up. “We have become so obsessed with winning the ball that we have forgotten what to do with it. In many ways selectors and coaches are to blame.”

England was a prime example of over-coaching, he said.

“You can see what they have been told to do and if it doesn’t come ofL. they’re absolutely lost. When I was captain, the team would do

what I wanted not what the coach said.” The approach to today’s game was wrong, he said. “Priority is not to lose, and there’s a vast difference between that and trying to win. “Players, too, are less dedicated now. They expect to take a lot out of the game and put little in. Fitness is a personal thing but they don’t train on their own any more. It’s all done in squad sessions.” © The uncompromising Scottish flanker, David Leslie, is the Yearbook’s “player of the year.” Leslie, described by 198384 Yearbook writer, Norman Mair, as fearless and at times almost suicidally committed, spearheaded Scotland’s five nations championship grand slam.

The 32-year-old Scot has been criticised for being injury-prone. He answered the suggestion in the Yearbook by saying: “If you are in the firing line, as a good flanker ought constantly to be, you’re going to buy it now and then. “It is the flanker who is virtually never injured of whom I should want to ask questions.” Mair said Leslie was “the best and most voracious winner of the ball on the floor in the championship: a priceless asset to a team whose whole philosophy revolved heavily around dynamic rucking.” Leslie has been capped 28 times by Scotland. Mair might have won a possible 24 more caps but for injuries.