LOSS TO RUGBY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 99, 29 April 1938, Page 8

LOSS TO RUGBY.

IMPERIAL DELEGATE. DEATH" OF MR. S. F. WILSON. SELECTOR OF FOUR N.Z. TEAMS (By Telegraph.— i'rcss Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. A former administrator of Rugby in Canterbury and one of the best known identities in football in New Zealand, Mr. S. F. Wilson, died at Christehureh to-day. Patron o£ the Albion Club and life member of the Canterbury Union, he represented New Zealand at the international conference at London in 11)24. Under his regime the game prospered in Canterbury (lie was president of the union for many years) and the standard of the present day is due iii many respects to his sound advice and copable leadership.

Mr. Sam Wilson was one of the selectors of the 1910, 1913, 1914 and 1920 All Blacks. Of the Inel-uanicil team liis Auckland nephew, V. W. Wilson (who kept wickets for i'arnell until n couple of years ago) was one of the most useful players in Australia, both at wing and centre.

In addition to his services to Rugby as enumerated in the above telegram, Mr. Wilson represented New South Wales again.st Queensland in 1001. Therefore, it must have been a great honour for him to have been president of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union in 1923 when a Xew South Wales side toured the Dominion.

Only one of tho four l<l2o selectors now survives, this being Mr. (J. W. Nicholson, of Auckland. The other two. Messrs. D. M. Stuart (Otago). then national president, and A. J. Griffiths (Wellington). father of the 1935 All Black, died shortly after the Xew Zealand team returned from Home in 1936.

Mr. Wilson's interest in cricket was only transcended by his love of New Zealand's national pastime, for he reached such a high standard of efficiency in the administration of the eleven-a-side game that he was a member of the Xew Zealand Cricket Council's management committee for three seasons: 1020-21 to 1922-23 inclusive.