Linwood retains players

Press, 30 August 1989, Page 33

Linwood retains players

JOHN COFFEY

Linwood has good cause to look ahead to the 1990 rugby league season after retaining the nucleus of the squad which almost carried it into Sunday’s Canterbury championship grand final.

After being on the brink of relegation 12 months ago, Linwood made its boldest showing for more than a decade when it finished second to Marist-Western Suburbs in the premiership and reached the championship preliminary final. Only a few points kept it out of its first grand final since 1974. Linwood was nudged out by Marist-West-ern, 5-4, in the major semi-

final and 12-8 by Addington in last Sunday’s preliminary final.

But Linwood will again have a mix of experienced and youthful players when it begins its 1990 campaign. Of the recruits only the former Auckland wing, Darryl Henare, is returning north.

Negotiations still have to be completed with Carl Hall, a Junior Kiwi from Auckland who gained the Canterbury fullback position. But Linwood has retained Justin Wallace, who had been a Kiwi trialist from Bay of Plenty, and the Canterbury representatives, Russell Tuuta and Glen Moore. Half of the members of Linwood’s premier squad

were aged 20 years or under, a promising omen for the future.

“It was virtually last year’s 19-years team,” said the Linwood president, Keith Brown, yesterday. "We were more than happy with what was achieved, and can be reasonably confident for next season. It was a matter of getting off our bums and doing something,” he said of Linwood’s plight of late last year. Linwood will again have the highly successful Phil Prescott as its coach in 1990. In just three years Mr Prescott has won two championships with Halswell and almost had Linwood in a position to challenge for a third.