Captain’s injury deliberate—coach

Press, 10 July 1989, Page 36

Captain’s injury deliberate—coach

Tony Gordon, the Kiwi coach, said after yesterday’s first rugby league test that his captain, Hugh McGahan, had been injured by a foul tackle from the Australian prop, Steve Roach. “Hugh took a real hammering,” said Mr Gordon, “and I was very critical of the referee at that stage. “Roach went into him (McGahan) very late with his knees into the kidneys. I don’t think it was accidental, but we’ll watch it on the video.” Although agreeing the referee (Ray Tennant, of

Britain) had been well positioned when one Australian try resulted from a forward pass, Mr Gordon had no other complaints about the rulings. He was less satisfied with aspects of New Zealand’s performance. “We didn’t come right until the second half. We weren’t confident enough to move the ball around as we should have, “The big Australian forwards did the damage, that’s something we have to really work on,” he said. McGahan contrasted the preparations of the

two teams. The Kiwis had reassembled this week after nine months apart, while the nucleus of the Australian combination played weekly for the Brisbane Broncos and the test lineup closely resembled the winning Queensland State of Origin side. “I still think we have a team which can beat the Australians. We proved we can make the breaks, but have to hold the ball for full sets of six tackles instead of trying to score on the first or second,” said McGahan. “We need to formulate

a pattern where we can settle ourselves down eaarly and not make basic mistakes,” he said. Bob Fulton, the Australian coach, said he expected an aggressive start from the Kiwis. “You can be aggressive and control your aggression. Most of their players did that but one, maybe two, of the others didn’t,” he said. Mr Fulton said he was satisfied with his side’s second half effort, during which it out-scored New Zealand only 6-4. The players had found it very difficult running into the

sun, and Mr Fulton said that might have also contributed to the Kiwis’ first half error-rate. The Australian captain, Wally Lewis was not available to the New Zealand news media — how reaction to a brief appearance on the television programme, Holmes, last Friday evening. Australian officials have complained to television authorities, claiming that Lewis had been set up after going into the Christchurch studio to send interviews back to the Channel 10 network which employs him in Australia.