Injuries could make coach’s job easier

Press, 4 April 1989, Page 32

Injuries could make coach’s job easier

PA Auckland Injuries to two All Blacks, Alan Whetton and Terry Wright, could ironically help ease some of the big selection headaches looming' for the Auckland representative rugby coach, Maurice Trapp. Trapp clearly will have to leave some talented players on the sideline when Auckland opens its South Pacific Championship campaign against Wellington at Athletic Park next Sunday. Whetton injured his knee in Sunday’s festival game against the Barbarians and Wright missed the final of the Hong Kong sevens after being heavily tackled in the semifinals against Fiji. Mr Trapp said it was too soon to know how serious the injuries were but emphasised he would like to have both men available for selection.

But if they were not, Auckland did have considerable depth. Thus some of the younger players like Jasin Goldsmith, Craig Innes, Va’aiga Tuigamala and Robin

Brooke might be retained for i another opportunity. Despite < the talent available, Mr i Trapp was emphatic a major 1 improvement would be 1 needed against Wellington. t “We were much too loose against the Barbarians, disap- < pointingly so,” he said yester- 1 day. “But at least it exposed J those areas where we haven’t 1 quite gelled yet. And credit < has to go to the side for s starting to build on things 1 after a bad start.” < • A former All Black, t Andy Haden, yesterday said i that he had no intention of restoring rugby contacts with < South Africa this year. t Asked yesterday whether t the new organisation he is. t forming to fight sporting 1 double standards could be ' t connected with a Cavaliers- r type rebel tour, Haden said: < “I have no intention of encouraging any rugby contact c with South Africa before the f Commonwealth Games.” v Similarly, he did not be- ’ lieve that the New Zealand I union should encourage in- a dividual All Blacks to accept v

invitations to take part in centenary matches in South Africa this year. Haden hoped the Games in Auckland next year would go ahead unaffected. But he emphasised that the organisation he was forming. Sports People Against Double Standards, had implications for the Games and those organising it. Just as rugby should not create problems for the Games, so too did Games administrators have an obligation not to meddle in rugby’s affairs. Meddling had certainly occurred, Haden said, at the time of the 1985 court injunction against the All Blacks touring South Africa, particularly with comments from the then Olympic and Commonwealth Games association chairman, Roy Dutton. It was also a fact that countries would be taking part in next year’s Games whose records in civil rights were recognised by United Nations documentation to be as bad as, and in some cases worse than. South Africa’s.