Johnathan Davies playing for Widnes
Dual Welsh rugby international Jonathan Davies proved the difference as Canterbury struggled to a 14-10 win over the Wally Lewis led Gold Coast Seagulls at Tweed Heads.
The Bulldogs trailed 10-8 until Davies exploded from a standing start to thread his way through the Gold Coast defence and score beside the posts. Until that point the Seagulls’ defence was spot-on and the home side was headed for an upset win.
Seagulls’ captain-coach Wally Lewis was always dangerous although he made some uncharacteristic errors. Second rower Scott Freestone; fullback Clinton Mohr and inter-change player Chris Close were Seagulls’ best while centre Darren Smith; five eighth Terry Lamb and forwards Scott Tronc and Bruce McGuire impressed for Canterbury.
Meanwhile the Broncos capitalised on the sin binning of Penrith second rower Colin Van der Voort, scoring two tries during his absence to jump to a 14-0 lead over the Panthers at Lang Park.
Broncos’ coach Wayne Bennett described his side’s first 40 minutes as “almost perfect”. It looked like Brisbane would romp home when halfback Allan Langer scored a powerful try soon after halftime for the Broncos to lead 20-2. But tries to centre Col Bentley and inter-change player Darren Willis put the Panthers’ back in the picture. The final score was 20-12 to Brisbane, who also won reserve grade and under-21s against the Panthers.
The Queensland Rugby League community was mourning the passing of former wing great Bill Paten at the age of 94. Paten was a fixture in Queensland sides from 1918 to 1928. He played two Tests for Australia – one against the Kiwis on the Kangaroos’ 1919 tour and the other against Jonathan Parkin’s 1924 British tourists.
Paten played in the first Queensland team to defeat New South Wales – in 1922. He made his maroons’ against Sydney Premiers’ Souths and went on to play 33 games for his state – 22 against the Blues; one against Victoria; one against Far North Qld; four against NZ, two against New Zealand provincial side Canterbury; two against Great Britain and the Souths’ game.
Footnote: Johnathan Davies and Wally Lewis did not clash in the Test arena because Davies did not switch from rugby union until 1989 when he joined the Widnes club in Cheshire. Wally captained the Kangaroos on their New Zealand tour in 1989 but injury forced him out of the Kangaroos’ tour of Britain in 1990. Davies, who scored 100 points in his 14 games with Canterbury in 1991, now commentates on both rugby codes for the BBC.
I wrote the Bill Paten Obituary for The Courier-Mail and in 2017 interviewed his son, Bill Paten Jnr at Wynnum Leagues Club for Men of League magazine.
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