World Cup rival ‘best for decade’

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 72

World Cup rival ‘best for decade’

By

JOHN COFFEY

Australia’s team for the World cup final is “the best their selectors have come up with for a decade,” according to the New Zealand rugby league coach, Tony Gordon.

“I’ve got to say it’s the strongest, in my opinion, during my involvement in the game,” Mr Gordon said from Rotorua yesterday. So fulsome in his praise of the team named on Monday evening was Mr Gordon that the Australians will probably accuse him of attempting to make their players overconfident. The Australian lineup for the World Cup showdown at Eden Park, Auckland, on October 9 is:— Garry Jack; Dale Shearer, Mark McGaw, Andrew Farrar, Michael O’Connor; Wally Lewis (captain), Allan Langer; Steve Roach, Ben Elias, Paul Dunn; Gavin Miller, Paul Sironen; Wayne Pearce. Reserves: Terry Lamb, David Gillespie. The only newcomers to test football are the centres, Farrar and McGaw, and the reserve forward, Gillespie. However, McGaw scored two tries in the Australian Bicentennial match against Rest of the World in Sydney earlier this year. Four of the backs, Jack O’Connor, Shearer and Lewis, but only Pearce of the forwards, are survivors of New Zealand’s 136 victory at Brisbane 14 months ago. Late-season form has been vital. The Balmain and Canterbury-Banks-town clubs which participated in last Sunday’s Winfield cup final provide nine of the 15 players, and another four are in the standby squad. “They have been playing right through, and haven’t lost any condition,” said Mr Gordon, who today will be checking his letter box for his weekly video package from a Sydney contact. The probe for

weaknesses begins. What, one asks Mr Gordon, of the broken jaw which disrupted Shearer’s season at Manly? “Shearer is a big match footballer and the effects of that injury matter less to a wing than to a forward. The guys inside him will utilise Shearer’s speed,” was Mr Gordon’s reply. Will, McGaw and Farrar form a new centre combination? “Obviously they have been chosen to combat Dean Bell and Kevin Iro. Both are big (McGaw, actually, could be classified as very big at 1.93 m and 93.5 kg) and will need to be taken first time up.” What about Roach’s infamous short fuse and recent suspension? “He might be undisciplined, but there is no doubting he is one of the best players in the world. I’d say he will have a big part to play in their plans,” said Mr Gordon. “I’m sorry Australia has left out Sam Backo from the front-row. He won a lot of awards and got plenty of publicity in the representative season, but he is not an 80-minute footballer. “On the other hand, Sironen worries me. He had a great year in 1986, went off the boil last year, and Warren Ryan (the Balmain coach) has done a top job in getting him back up again,” he said. Inexplicably, Australian reports have described Sironen as a new selection. He toured Britain and France with the 1986 Kangaroos, earning promotion to the test team. Mr Gordon will have the chance to evaluate the form of Farrar, Dunn, Lamb and Gillespie when they play for CanterburyBankstown against Auck-

land at Carlaw Park on Sunday. At least three of the Australians, O’Connor (at St Helens), Roach (Warrington) and Miller (at Hull Kingston Rovers), will be able to maintain match fitness with British first division clubs. © Mr Gordon has dismissed reports that he will try to stop the Australian team from training on Eden Park before the World Cup final. “I have not approached the. New Zealand Rugby League whatsoever and have no intention to stop the Australians if they want to train there,” he told the Press Association. “I couldn’t care less where they train. For all I know they might even want to train in the Manukau mudflats and that’s entirely up to them.

“Obviously Don Furner (Australian coach) will want to get a run on Eden Park or have a good look at it before the final but it’s got nothing to do with me,” he said. His major, concern was to have his team run on Eden Park to get accustomed to the cup final venue, he said. Mr Gordon acknowledged that if the Australians were given a training run on Eden Park, it would be different from the manner in which the Kiwis were treated in Brisbane last year. “They wouldn’t let us train on Lang Park although we got to walk around on it. It was the same in Sydney earlier this year when I helped Graham Lowe with the World XIII team against Australia. There again, they wouldn’t let us use the venue for a training session.”