Room Check

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28890, 9 May 1959, Page 5

Room Check

Hie University Rugby Club, which is celebrating its diamond jubilee this year, has had a colourful history and there are many amusing stories about its earlier days. One of the more popular (and true) adecdotes concerns the time when J. K. Moloney and the late G. H. Manson managed the 1928 team which went to Dunedin to play the University of Otago for the Payne Trophy. Right from the start they impressed on the players the need to abstain from any social activity whatsoever. Of course this did not apply to the managers who on the night before the game partook of the hospitality of their hosts. When they returned to their hotel they decided to check the rooms to ensure that all the players were in bed. They found one room empty, the number was noted and the two officials retired for the night, making dire threats as to the fate of the missing delinquents. At breakfast next morning there were no confessions. The room number was checked with the hotel register and it was only then that the managers realised it was their own room they had noted.