SOURCE: The Times

DATE: 30 June 1993

PAGE: 40 Lions selectors get their priorities right;Rugby Union David Hands 

Waikato 38 - British Isles XV 10. AT LEAST there can be no debate about the team that will represent the British Isles in the final tour match on Saturday. Today, the Lions will announce an unchanged XV to play New Zealand after witnessing here a humiliation to equal that of Hawke's Bay last week.

No provincial team has ever scored such a conclusive victory over the Lions. Otago scored 37 points earlier this tour but their winning margin was only 13 points; New Zealand scored 38 points against the 1983 Lions in the final international. But Waikato's domination at Rugby Park was complete; if Matthew Cooper, their full back and only All Blacks squad member, had kicked more accurately, the score would have reached 50.

Waikato, the 1992 national champions, have had to wait a long time for this. They have achieved famous victories over the 1956 Springboks, the 1979 French captained by Kevin Greene, their present coach and the 1990 Australians, but never over the Lions. Yesterday, they made up for it with two goals, three tries and three penalty goals against a goal and a penalty goal.

They did so with a variation of the tactics used by Otago, by driving further with their fiery forwards against a midweek side that, in certain positions, has been completely unable to sustain the demands of an eight-week tour.

Broadly speaking, the Lions backs, in particular Carling and Barnes, should be excepted from criticism in that they found themselves having to do so much of the forwards' work. Time and again Stevenson, Anderson and Jerram carved past sluggish forwards, creating great gaps that the Lions were slow to fill. But for some indifferent passing, Waikato must surely have scored more than five tries.

They have, too, an interesting player in Duane Monkley. He is the Neil Back of New Zealand rugby; he is said to be too small for the All Blacks, but yesterday he scored two tries and nearly cut Carling in half as the centre tried to gather Barnes's poor pass. It was greatly to Carling's credit that he stayed on the field with a painful shoulder, even more that he could still find gaps and score the try that was some small solace.

Monkley's forte is support; his first try was at the heart of a maul, the second at the shoulder of Mitchell, his captain. How impressed the New Zealand selectors will be remains in doubt, but there is no doubt that the champions feel resentment at their lack of representation in the All Blacks squad.

Equally, the Lions management must now be convinced that criticism made when the tour party was announced has been proved valid. Ian McGeechan, the coach, offered no public explanation for the decline and fall of the tight forwards who served Scotland so well in the five nations', but that is a different competition, with different demands. Here, week after week, the rugby is so hard that some players have been unable to cope.

"You have to be very hard mentally to keep performing,'' McGeechan said. Geoff Cooke, the manager, admitted that he had not expected such a gap to develop between the international XV and the midweek side. "Today, we were well beaten by a side playing with a lot of skill and commitment,'' Cooke said. In the first quarter, the Lions scarcely saw the ball and Waikato ran up 15 points, their first try falling to Wilson with only 50 seconds on the clock. There was a beautiful continuity about their game that the Lions, even when they settled into a halting kind of stride, could never equal. Only a Barnes penalty goal halted Waikato's first-half rush and even when they achieved attacking positions as they did with more frequency than the score suggests the Lions' play was so inaccurate, they could make nothing of them.

The improvement in the second half was marginal, with Waikato restricted to 12 points against the Lions' seven. But the ease with which they kept the Lions at bay was typified by Gatland's casual stroll over the line for Waikato's final try.

What the Lions might have achieved with more industrious forwards was shown late on by two successful rucks, a touchline dart by Wallace and support from Carling. What they got may prove to be a sad international epitaph for such fine players as Robert Jones and Teague, who deserved far better for their respective contributions to Welsh and English rugby. SCORERS: Waikato: Tries: Monkley (2), Wilson, Collins, Gatland. Conversions: Cooper (2). Penalty goals: Cooper (3). British Isles: Try: Carling. Conversion: Barnes. Penalty goal: Barnes. WAIKATO: M Cooper; D Wilson, A Collins, R Ellison, W Warlow; I Foster, S Crabb; C Stevenson, W Gatland, G Purvis, R Jerram, S Gordon, B Anderson (rep: M Russell), D Monkley, J Mitchell (captain). BRITISH ISLES XV: A Clement (Swansea); R Wallace (Garryowen), V Cunningham (St Mary's College), W Carling (Harlequins, captain), T Underwood (Leicester); S Barnes (Bath), R Jones (Swansea); P Wright (Boroughmuir), K Milne (Heriot's FP), P Burnell (London Scottish), M Teague (Moseley), D Cronin (London Scottish), A Reed (Bath), R Webster (Swansea), M Galwey (Shannon). Referee: T Marshall (Canterbury). 


(c) Times Newspapers Ltd. 1993
