Lochore predicts 'hard slog’ for All Blacks

Press, 12 October 1985, Page 80

Lochore predicts 'hard slog’ for All Blacks

NZPA staff correspondent Buenos Aires The All Black coach, Brian Lochore, led a jaded team into Buenos Aires complaining on arrival that the team’s two-day preparation for the tour opener tomorrow against a San Isidro Club selection was grossly insufficient. The rigours of travel and the lack of time to prepare would substantially increase the pressure on players named to take part in the first match against Argentina’s champion club, he said.

His concerns were compounded when he learned that the forward pack of Club Atletico San Isidro has five Pumas — Argentinian internationals — suggesting that the battle of an underprepared All Black team

will be even greater. “It wiß be a hard slog,” he said. “I’m not making excuses before we start but it is hard to be fit in two days. “International air travel knocks your metabolism around and although the team has gone straight to bed, I doubt many of them will sleep tonight,” said Mr Lochore. “At best the match team will get two training runs together and they will have to be light ones because muscles win be tight after all that traveUing,” he said. At a press conference, rugby officials stifled political questions from several of the 30 local reporters who attended. The conference was staged by Mr Lochore, the captain, Jock Hobbs, and the manager,

Dick Littlejohn, and conducted through an interpreter. Questions ranged over subjects including the rank of the Pumas in world rugby and Andy Haden’s amateur status, but when a question was asked about the 1983 Falklands war it was quickly smothered. One reporter asked about the cancellation of the All Black tour to Argentina after the severing of diplomatic relations over the Falklands crisis. He asked if rugby people were “easier now” that Labour was in Government and the National Government which had assisted Britain during the Falkland campaign had been removed. Mr Littlejohn did not have time to compose an answer before rugby union

officials stepped in and demanded no political questions be asked. Mr Lochore said he was surprised to hear the question adding, “It is obviously a controversial area that they don’t want to enter.” ,i

Another reporter asked Mr Lochore why the All Blacks had brought a large stock of New Zealand beer with them. Mr Littlejohn intervened, explaining that the team had understood that little beer was brewed in Argentina and that the small amount that was availble was of poor quality. “But we sampled some Argentinian beer on the plane coming here and it was excellent,” he said. “We have obviously wasted our time.”

Yesterday the players grappled with a different time zone, a different language, a different culture.

Brian McGrattan, the Wellington prop, found himself in his hotel coffee shop at 3.30 ajn. (local time), trying to eat his way towards sleep. Most of the players had plunged into the busy streets round the team hotel, tasting Argentinan street life, trying to stifle the unnatural alertness that follows a change of time zones. Early in the morning the streets of Buenos Aires were wide awake and the players, similarly, found sleep hard to come by. Hobbs found problems compounded by the fact that the team had arrived

to find its accommodation cancelled at one hotel and the need to book another for a night until the original hotel could clear enough rooms for the players and their accompanying news media contingent He said the need to drive almost 40km to train on the first morning of the tour then to transfer the team and its baggage to a new hotel were inconveniences which, along with the tiredness of the players, acted against their acclimatisation. However, the team found their accommodation outstanding, the hospitality of their hosts overwhelming and the food excellent, ideal for players preparing for a big match. Training was as novel as anything the team has seen

in Argentina. The allocated ground was on an island at the centre of the sports complex, a 10-minute boat ride from the main facility. The Ferrocarril Stadium is fUIly pre-sold: as are all the venues of . the seven match tour, and 28,000 people will watch the All Blacks in action in Argentina for the first time in nine years. The All Black team is: Kieran Crowley, John Kirwan, Steven Pokere, Craig Green, Kurt Sherlock, Wayne Smith, Dave Loveridge, Wayne Shelford, Jock Hobbs (captain), Andy Haden, Albert Anderson, Mark Shaw, Gary Knight, Brace Hemara, Brian McGrattan. Reserves, forwards: Hika Reid, Steve McDowell, Alan Whetton. Backs, David Kirk, Grant Fox. Victor Simnson.