Rugby story by Carl Anders, Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:28:00 GMT


Great Britain resurrected their Gillette Tri-Nations Series campaign with a brilliant victory over the New Zealand Kiwis. Brian Carney shrugged off his lackluster performance against the Kiwis a fortnight ago and his two tries were out of this world.

But Paul Deacon got a frightful injury ensuring that his Tri-Series campaign is over. Deacon sustained an injury right on the face from a high shot by the New Zealand centre Shontayne Hape. The incident has been put on report. Also doubtful for the vital game against the Wallabies on Saturday is Brian Carney, who limped off with a hamstring injury towards the end of the match.

Great Britain Captain Jamie Peacock was worried about Deacon and said, “The doctor said it could have been life-threatening. It is very serious. Deacs has got the worst injury I have ever seen.Deacs was playing real well but fortunately we've got a lot of good half-backs so we can cover that position.”

Brian Noble, the Great Britain coach was also pretty concerned about Deacon, but was fully focused on the match against the Australians. Noble was full of praise for the way his team handled the Kiwis, "It's come on the back of a lot of hard work by the players. They were determined and improved on last week, that's all we ask. With 15 minutes to go we were down to 14 players so people had to mix and match and show that heroic side of the game as well," he said.

Jamie Thackray and Chev Walker also contributed after coming off the bench and Noble seems to have finally got the team combination right. Britain was very confident on the day and any suggestion that they were under pressure was soon forgotten with the score reading 32-0 just after half-time.

The Kiwis came into the match needing a win to ensure a place for themselves in the November 28 final, but were unable to keep up with the pace set by the Lions. New Zealand coach, Brian McClennan felt that the team let themselves down, "They were pretty sharp and got a roll on; we were pretty poor with our ball control. We have to sit and watch the game next week and hope and pray," he said.

How the match shaped up:
Referee: T Mander (Australia).

Great Britain: Wellens; Carney, Gleeson, Senior, Pryce; Harris, Deacon; Fielden, Cunningham, Morley, Peacock (Capt.), Johnson, Ellis.
Substitutes: Higham, Walker, Thackray, Horne.

New Zealand: Webb; Webster, Hape, Toopi, Vatuvei; Vagana, Jones; Rauhihi, Tony, Wiki (Capt.), Kidwell, Solomona, Guttenbeil
Substitutes: Faimu, Anderson, Asotasi, Lauiti'iti.

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