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Blues strike snag with Spencer
Posted: Tuesday April 27, 1999 04:51 PM
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (Reuters) -- One of the leading All Black backup players, fly-half Carlos Spencer, is struggling to perform this season and his weakness is troubling his Auckland Blues and others in the run-up to the World Cup. Blues coach Jed Rowlands is worried that Spencer's ability to direct backline play from the number 10 position has failed him, the New Zealand Herald reported on Tuesday. Spencer is the All Blacks' first choice back-up to Canterbury Crusaders fly-half Andrew Mehrtens, another player whose form has been patchy this year. An apparent attitude lapse got him in trouble on Saturday when he gestured at a hostile Pretoria crowd. The Herald said Spencer was both "a puzzle and a problem" for the Blues as they struggled to stay in range of a qualifying place when the Super 12 round robin series ends in three weeks. "Spencer's vision and confidence have evaporated in startling quantities," the paper said. Spencer's backline direction had become so erratic that Rowlands would reduce some of his duties for this weekend's match against the Stormers in South Africa. "We do have a problem," Rowlands told the Herald before the team's departure for South Africa on Monday. Rowlands may either persevere with Spencer to sort out his play, move him to another position, or drop him in favor of backup Tony Monaghan or utility back Marc Ellis. The paper also suggested Rowlands might hire the experienced Frano Botica, who is now back in New Zealand from a playing stint in France and who is available for top level rugby. While the coach has stayed loyal to Spencer for the crunch Stormers' tie in Cape Town, he has charged inside center Craig Innes with calling some moves from second phase play. "We will continue to try to work things out with Carlos," Rowlands said. "It is obvious he is not finding it easy to read the game so we will change that this week. "It is not a form thing because Carlos has not become hopeless. He does some things others just can't do. In the past he has got away with some of his play because of the dominance of the forwards," Rowlands added. In a substantial shift, stemming from the retirement of Auckland and All Blacks' hooker Sean Fitzpatrick and number eight Zinzan Brooke last year, the lion's share of the All Black pack is now drawn from the Otago Highlanders. That change has disrupted the All Blacks structure, especially as the backs were drawn last year from a combination of the Blues and the Crusaders. Rowlands put it this way: "You could see last year once the All Blacks and Auckland were not so strong, Carlos found it harder to make the right decisions." One implication is that the All Blacks may have to rethink their backline options yet again in 1999, now that Spencer is struggling, and consider putting Otago fly-half Tony Brown in as a strategic first choice for the pre-World Cup squad and possibly even in-form Highlanders' scrum-half Byron Kelleher.
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