Club Rugby Review

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28930, 25 June 1959, Page 11

Club Rugby Review

Within the space of about five minutes, the Old Boys •J— second five-eighths, S. K. Henderson, attempted three field goals, all of which missed. Later he missed another but finally succeeded with a snap attempt. • OT. Milesi has been one of New Brighton’s most consistent forwards this season, but he has surely played no better match than he did against Marist. Strongly built and aggressive,' he often surged into the Marist ranks, ball under arm, and made a lot of ground before he was borne under by weight of numbers.

» Merivale is unlucky that B. Young, a pacy wing and one of the most promising in the competition, was ; injured in a friendly match the ; week-end before last. He could not play last Saturday and will also miss some more matches.

The Linwood wing threequarters, D. de Felice, has improved rapidly in recent games and his speed and acceleration have bewildered many opponents who are unfamiliar with his record as a sprinter. At St. Bede’s College he established records over the shorter distance’s and a few years later, competing for Air Force, he ran the 100 yards in lO.lsec and consistently returned times around that mark.

• | Both full-backs at Rugby LJ Park, K. Brown for MarIst in the early game and S. F. McCormick for Linwood in the main game, gave faultless displays. McCormick’s kicking was less accurate, but his deter- ' mined running enabled Linwood to draw with Sunnyside-Sprey-don, and with a little more luck and support one of his bursts would have produced a further try. • The young Belfast fiveeighths, R. Holt, showed -L~ great promise in the game against University last Saturday. Although he had a hard task to mark the clever A. F. Orme, Holt made a good showing and often made useful breaks for his side. With more support for Holt and better handling by the other Belfast backs, University’s score would have been greatly reduced. • | No-one could have been |I more warmly applauded n for scoring a try when the Belfast coach, E. Brown, touched down against University. Eleven years ago, Brown was the outstanding back of the Belfast team, and although he makes no pretence of retaining the honour, he showed surprising speed to beat B. M. J. Dineen to the ball.

te Playing as a replacement I in the Albion team on Saturday, B. Hopping, who is now coaching the side, showed that he has lost none of his skill as a loose forward. After many years as a senior player he is still very fit and was always up with play

Off the scrummaging in the Sydenham-Old Boys’ game was any criterion, the recent further interpretation to the scrummaging law has not made much difference to the clean hooking of the ball. In this game scarcely a scrum went down in which the ball was hooked first time. There were several occasions on which it was put in three times, and once four, before it was hooked.

Technical wasted many of the penalty kicks awarded against Christchurch by using what many now refer to as the "silly kick.” The short kick is an excellent manoeuvre if some thought has been put into a plan of campaign once the ball is kicked. But it loses its efficiency when it is used only as a means of restarting play. In the earlier game, however, Sydenham used the kick for tactical purposes and succeeded well.