Canterbury Soccer Team May Have Better Days Ahead

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31083, 11 June 1966, Page 15

Canterbury Soccer Team May Have Better Days Ahead

JT is a popular mistake to x use the performance in one match to write off a team's prospects for the rest of the season. It is done too casually, too sweepingly, and it would have been done after Canterbury’s disappointing, 2-4, defeat by Wellington in the representative soccer match at English Park last Saturday.

On the day Wellington was the better team: it was faster, fitter and made the best use of all its talents. Yet if a recount had been taken of the amount of ball each side had and of the chances it had to score, there would be less discrepancy between the teams. But the fact remains that Canterbury was more often under pressure, had more chasing to do and rarely moved with freedom.

The team taking one step too many before releasing the ball or needing an extra second to control it, loses at least a yard, and even when all else is equal between two sides that one yard is enough to make the difference between victory and defeat. And a second can be lost, too, while the player

with the ball is searching for a colleague to pass to. Too many times last Saturday the only things a Canterbury player in possession could see were the backs of his team-mates. And so movements broke down, passes went astray, and the whole rhythm of the side became strident and staccato.

The sole selector (Mr V. R. Smith) said after the game that Canterbury obviously lacked mat:h fitness. The only build-up the team had had before meeting Wellington was a 6-0 victory over Nelson, a 4-0 win against the President's XI and a very unsatisfactory trial under lights at Rangers Park. It was hardly enough and was probably the cause of the team failing to knit together The withdrawal of B. Gowans because of injury did not help matters, but even less did the fact that the players went on to the field only 45 minutes after a team talk in which they had been told the tactics they would use in the absence of Gowans. It became obvious very soon after the start that if there were a plan at

all, there were some who were not sure how it was supposed to work. There were weaknesses but most had been foreseen although T. Conley was well below the form that had been expected from him. The gravest weaknesses were on both wings where Canterbury had plenty of possession and produced very little. The Western right-wing, C. Martin, showed on the Monday against South Canterbury that he can be schooled to do the right thing if he will only remember to do it. He has a powerful, still uncontrolled shot, but on Monday when he used it sparingly and instead squared the ball to a colleague in the centre he became a valuable asset to the side.

The other wing, C. Jones, has ability and speed, but he is not ready for the senior team. His day may come, but until then a replacement must be found. It may have to be an inside-forward or a wing-half if there is not a ready-made left-wing in the province.

It is a strange irony that the player who could be the

selector’s dream Is his goalkeeper, O. Nuttridge. Whenever he has played on the wing—and he did for a half in the floodlit trial—-he has been most impressive. If the young Brighton centre-for-ward, A. Caine, continues to get goals against better opposition, the current Canterbury centre-forward, J. Logue, could be tried on the wing. Often in a match he drifts to the flanks without losing any of his ability. Before Canterbury goes on to its future fixtures, and more particularly the E.F.A. Trophy challenge against Auckland, every possible experiment must be made. If all else is lost and- the big one, Auckland, landed, the season will have been worth while.

However, Canterbury must take another leaf out of Wellington’s book before that will happen. The Wellington team had been training twice a week before it met Canterbury—and that does not include the otner two times the players trained with their clubs. Wellington was ready for Canterbury—the way it played showed that.