North Zone loses Paul Simonsson

Press, 17 May 1989, Page 64

North Zone loses Paul Simonsson

PA Wellington The ever-changing make-up of teams for this year’s inter-zonal rugby series underwent further alteration yesterday when the Waikato wing, Paul Simonsson, withdrew from North Zone side. Simonsson pulled out at lunchtime with a haematoma (severe bruising) and his place for today’s match against Central Zone at Wanganui has been taken by North Harbour’s lan Wood. No replacement has been sought to take Wood’s spot in reserves because of the shortage of time.

North Zone has already had to make one change, with Aucklander Marty Brooke coming on to the bench as a replacement for Glynn Meads. There were a number of switches to the teams before the Central versus South Zone match last week, and Central has also had to rearrange its lineup this week. North Zone, which has not lost a match since the triangular series began in 1987, is again favourite to win the George Nepia Memorial Trophy. The coach, Peter Thorburn, said he was happy with the way the team had come together after

two training runs. “I’m very pleased. We’ve got some quite experienced players there and they’re well organised,” he said. “Everyone has fitted together well. Three or four of them haven’t had any big football this year so they’re looking forward to a higher standard game.” Mr Thorburn admitted that preparation had been limited, but the understanding between players was already there to some extent. “With only two training funs it’s difficult to do much other than organisation, getting the players to

do the same things, establishing calls and moves,” he said. “But most of them know each other’s play and we’ve got players in the group who are extremely good at organising.” Mr Thorburn dismissed talk about the possible demise of the inter-zone series through lack of public interest as “mainly newspaper conjecture.” “Remember, it was going to be scrubbed last year. But the game’s there for us tomorrow and we’ll get these two games out of the road and worry about the inter-zone concept later.”

On whether national selectors had given guidelines on how they wanted the match played, Mr Thorburn said: “We do play players in particular ways they require. “Those players are on show and may be wanted by the selectors later in the year.” In the corresponding fixture last year, North Zone team with 11 All Blacks routed Central Zone, 68-6, at Rotorua. With North Zone boasting fewer All Blacks in its ranks this season, the match should be less onesided, although North still looks to have too much in reserve for Central.