THE MAORI SCORED!

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 309, 30 December 1940, Page 4

THE MAORI SCORED!

VIGNETTE OF WAR.

A RUGBY MATCH AND A BOMB.

(From the Official War Correspondent with the N.Z.E.F. In Great Britain, Mr. J. H. Hall.) LONDON, December 29.

Spectators were discouraged at a Rugby match which the Maori Battalion's second fifteen will not easily forget. It was played at the Thamesside coast while, as has frequently happened in our twice-weekly inter-unit competitions, enemy aircraft, passed high overhead. A bright passing movement went smartly out to a Maori wing, who set sail for the line. He fended off a forward, side-stepped an inside back, but looked likely to b* in trouble from the opposing wing and full-back—until suddenly both stretched .themselves fulllength on the ground. Out of the corner of his eye the runner saw others of the local team go similarly to earth. Then his ear caught the whistle of an approaching bomb and he followed suit. The bomb burst a couple of fields away, and the Maori boy, being slightly faster from a prone start, is said to have been past the other two before they,could touch him.