Hayes dropped for Bay of Plenty match

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 36

Hayes dropped for Bay of Plenty match

By

KEVIN McMENAMIN

Don Hayes, the stalwart captain of the Canterbury rugby team for the last six years, has been dropped from tomorrow’s National Mutual championship match against Bay of Plenty at Lancaster Park.

The selector-coach, Alex Wyllie, could not be contacted last evening, but it is unlikely that Hayes is being made to pay the price for Canterbury’s recent slump in form. The last few weeks have not been easy ones for the Kirwee farmer. He has been distracted from rugby by lambing problems and last week his mother-in-law died. He was not at the team’s only practice this week. Jock Hobbs will take over the captaincy in Hayes’s absence and this will be the first time that Hobbs has led Canterbury on Lancaster Park. He has a 100 per cent winning record in three away games. Mr Wyllie has still to decide on who Hayes’s playing replacement will be. He does have the services again of the Shirley loose forward, Grant Mickell. Mickell badly twisted a, knee while playing for his club two weeks ago and it was thought then that his season was over. However, he was able to train on Tuesday night and will probably play tomorrow. In the meantime, though, Mr Wyllie has left his blindside flanker options open by bracketing Andy Earl with Mickell on the side of the scrum and also with Tony Thorpe at lock. Hayes apart, Canterbury will be at full strength tomorrow. The game will be Murray Davie’s hundredth for Canterbury (see story page

14) and he will join Hayes as a second current centurion. Hayes’s total is 127. Any ideas Mr Wyllie may have had of giving Craig Green a rest and bringing Roger Kilpatrick back on the wing have been scuttled. Kilpatrick suffered concussion while playing for Canterbury B at Westport last Sunday and his season is over. The team is: Robbie Deans; Craig Green, Victor Simpson, Joe Leota; Warwick Taylor, Graham Bachop; Bruce Deans; Dale Atkins; Jock Hobbs (captain), Albert Anderson, Andy Earl or Tony Thorpe, Earl or Grant Mickell; Murray Davie, John Buchan, Chris Earl. Reserves: Allan Lindsay, Wayne Burleigh, Shayne Philpott; John Mills, Tala Kele, Mickell or Thorpe. The Bay of Plenty team has been named and it, too, is close to full strength. The most interesting contest is likely to be at second five-

eighths where Arthur Stone will mark Warwick Taylor, the man he displaced in the All Blacks for last week’s deciding test against Australia. Taylor will not only have a point to prove, but also to try and prove himself worthy of a place in the All Black side for next month’s tour to France. The Bay of Plenty side is: Barry Ririnui; Brent McKillop, Darryl Shelford, Warren Jennings; Arthur Stone, Ron Preston; Mark Basham; Gordon Tietjens; Rex O’Brien or Craig Burrell, Ron Rae, Kevin Moseley, Frank Shelford (captain); Peter Kennedy, Hika Reid, Arthur McLaren. Reserves: Brett Iti, Darrin Stone, Paul Carlton; Simon Edward, Wayne Ranui, O’Brien or Burrell. If Burrell plays there will be eight survivors from the Bay of Plenty team which came within centimetres of taking the Ranfurly Shield off Canterbury in their stirring shield games of 1984. One back again is the prop, Peter Kennedy, who was stopped only just short of the line in the final minute. If Kennedy had scored and Preston had kicked the handy conversion the shield would have left Christchurch 12 months earlier than it did. The Canterbury B team to play Otago B in the curtainraiser at Lancaster Park tomorrow is: Brad Stringer; Adrian Boyd, Steve Hansen, Richard MacDonald; Mark McHardy, Colin Williamson; Craig Williamson; Adrian Kennedy; Gavin Hill, Andrew Mills, Mike Fransen, Rob Penney; Kerry Pauling, Andrew McKellar, Barry Hammersley.