Rugby SUGGESTED TOUR BY MAORI TEAM

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28492, 23 January 1958, Page 4

Rugby SUGGESTED TOUR BY MAORI TEAM

Report On Game In U.S. And Canada

(New Zealand Presa Association) WHANGAREI, January 22. If Dr. M. N. Paewai has his way, a New Zealand Maori Rugby team will make a tour of California and British Columbia. Dr. Paewai, a New Zealand Maori representative, who has been regarded as the greatest player never to have won an All Black jersey, has just returned from a year’s visit to the United States, undertaken primarily fot medical research. While in the west, he made a point of inquiring into the condition of Rugby—the British brand. He found seven university clubs playing the game in Los Angeles, seven in San Francisco, and 10 in Vancouver. They played a six weeks’ season in March and April, to help players get fit for the longer season of American football. "I sounded them out there about a possible tour by the Maoris, and they couldn't have been keener,’’ Dr. Paewai said. "It would be quite feasible to play a series of 10 games on a brief tour. They would be anything but a pushover, too. “When the Cambridge University Rugby team last toured California, it was beaten twice. The American and Canadian Pacific coast boys are hoping the Wallabies can fit in a brief visit for at least one game on their return from Britain, said Dr. p When he called at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles Dr. Paewai found himself talking football to a New Zealander. He was Gerald Gardner a former Auckland player, who not long ago had been appointed Rugby coach at the university. He went to America as a Fulbright Scholar three years ago and played Rugby for the University of Southern California.