Famous Welsh wing picks All Blacks

Press, 14 May 1987, Page 38

Famous Welsh wing picks All Blacks

PA Auckland The famous Welsh and British Lions wing of the 19705, Gerald Davies, expects the All Blacks to win the William Webb Ellis Trophy in rugby’s inaugural World Cup tournament This is despite the fact the All Blacks suffered defeats in 1986 to both Australia and France. But Davies, a star of the epic 1971 Lions’ tour to New Zealand and arguably international rugby’s greatest wing of the last 25 years, said he would stick with the All Blacks.

“Perhaps I’m prejudiced but I do like the All Blacks so much,” said Davies, who arrived in New Zealand this week to report the World Cup for “The Times” of London, and to do television commentaries. “They know the basics of the game so very well, they know the rudiments better than anyone. They also have the right com-

petitive temperament and they’re also playing on their own patch.” Davies makes his prediction of a New Zealand triumph having watched the All Blacks lose heavily to France in Nantes late last year. “I don’t think you can go on that too much,” he said. “The All Blacks were a bruised side on that occasion. In the first game at Toulouse they played very well.” Davies is not too optimistic about the chances of the four British teams, but he says any pessimism is based on the premise of the 1987 Five Nations championship which was not spectacular and in which France was easily the best side. However, he emphasised that nobody had played in a World Cup tournament before and there were bound to be nnopts The course of the tournament, he pointed out, could be dramatically affected by some of the early pool' matches, par-

ticularly those involving France and Scotland in Christchurch, England and Australia in Sydney, both on Saturday week, and Ireland and Wales in Wellington on May 25. In first-up games there was a danger of one of the more favoured teams being caught “cold”. England, for example, would be coming straight from the European season whereas Australia, other than this week-end’s match against South Korea, would have little preparation. Davies said he was a strong supporter of the World Cup concept. While there might be some early anomalies, this year’s tournament had to be judged in the context of being an experiment, he said.

“It is a concept worth trying. We have got to support it and give it a good bang and what problems there are we won’t really know until another five weeks.”