No-frills rugby earns Canty win

Press, 12 September 1988, Page 17

No-frills rugby earns Canty win

Special correspondent Palmerston North Canterbury played sensible, no-frills rugby to beat Manawatu, 22-6, in a national championship match at the Palmerston North Showgrounds oval on Saturday. Canterbury made light of the damp conditions to run in the only five tries of the match and break its Palmerston North jinx, which had stretched back to 1978. Three of Canterbury’s tries were scored by its right wing, Mark Vincent.

The win propelled Canterbury into third place in the first division. The glum Manawatu crowd watched their team bumble its way closer to relegation to the second division for the first time.

The first try, in the first minutes, stunned Manawatu. Vincent received the ball from a ruck on the blind side and strode through a non-exis-tent tackle by the second five-eighths, Murray Kendrick, the returned New Zealand Universities captain.

Vincent’s second try was engineered by the first five-eighths, Stephen Bachop, who shrugged off his recent poor form with a scintillating first half. Bachop doubled round, which perplexed the indifferent Manawatu backline defence, and gifted Vincent the try. Bachop decided to capitalise on his continuing good fortune in the twentieth minute when he skipped over from a ruck on the short side.

For ' all but eight minutes before half-time, when Manawatu poured into the rucks and threatened Canterbury’s line, the home team was shut in its own half as it tried to escape the swirling crosswind. ‘

The Canterbury fullback, Shayne Philpott, had eight shots at goal for only one conversion, yet another victim of the va-

garies of the oval’s currents.

Canterbury kept up the pressure into the wind in the second half after allowing Manawatu to come back to 6-12, within reach of a vital bonus point. But Vincent’s third try came in the twenty-seventh minute, when Manawatu’s predictable backs inevitably broke down. The wing strode through another weak tackle to score. That broke the backs of the green-and-whites.

A Michael Lake try five minutes from the end, when the Manawatu centre, Paul Croswell, was barrelled on his 22m line, set the seal.' Canterbury won the ball while the home team made mistakes.

The Canterbury coach, Doug Bruce, was pleased to win and to, have five tries scored, but could not see the match going down as an epic.

“We’ve got Otago next week and we’ll have to dig deeper than we did today,” he said. Canterbury had to do without its injured All Blacks, Warwick Taylor and the captain, Albert Anderson. Manawatu’s coach, Gary Walker, said that his side had been below full strength all year.

Andrew McCormick looked an accomplished runner in his familiar second five-eighths position, revelling in the plentiful ball the industrious forwards provided. The former Manawatu lock, Chris England, had a prominent game in the lineouts, often bursting up field.

Bachop had a fine first half with some tricky running and chip kicks which had Manawatu jittery, but Joe Leota wasn’t sighted in his fiftieth game.

Scorers: Canterbury 22 (Mark Vincent 3, Stephen Bachop, Michael Lake, tries; Philpott conversion) Manawatu 6 (Matene Love 2 penalty goals).