S. K. HENDERSON SETS TWO MORE NATIONAL RECORDS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28999, 14 September 1959, Page 10

S. K. HENDERSON SETS TWO MORE NATIONAL RECORDS

For the third time. in a week the Canterbury five-eighths and eentre, S. K. Henderson, set new national scoring records in first class Rugby in New Zealand, when at Lancaster Perk on Saturday, as well as scoring 30 of his side’s 63 points in the representative fixture with Buller, he became the first New Zealander three times tc score in four different ways. The holder of the previous best score, the former All Black and Wellington left-wing, R. A. Jarden, set a record cf 27 points playing for Wellington against Southland in 1955. That time Jarden scored five tries, converted three and kicked two penalty goals. On Saturday Henderson scored a try, converted nine tries and kicked tw’o penalty goals and a dropped goal Earlier last week, when playing against Mid-Canterbury, Henderson scored seven points to beat another of Jarden*s records. This was the national record of 483 points scored by Jarden for his province. With the 30 points he scored on Saturday, Henderson has taken his provincial tally to 517 points, all of which have been scored for Canterbury A teams. He has scored 534 points in all first class matches. The other national record broken by Henderson on Saturday was that previously held jointly by him and M. F. Nicholls of having twice scored in four different ways. Henderson performed this feat in 1955 when against Wellington he scored a try and kicked two dropped goals, three conversions and a penalty goal, and year ’gainst MidCanterbury, when he scored a ZL’i. two Penalty *“d • dropped goal

He missed another record—that of becoming the first player to have scored in five different ways —by the narrowest of margins. During the game he took a fair catch practically under Buller’s posts and close in. He attempted a dropped goal from a mark and just missed.

His 30 points last Saturday also took him over the century for the season—for the third time in his representative career. With two matches still to be played this year, and 113 points to his credit so far, he has an excellent chance of improving upon his previous best representative season’s score of 126 points set in 1955. On Saturday he missed only three of his 14 kicks at goal and these three were reasonably easy ones. Had he been more recordconscious and less of a team-man, he might have scored another two tries, but on each occasion he made sure of the tries by handing on to a team-mate when the line was in sight.

Biggest Score But his were not the only records established on Saturday. In scoring 63 points, Canterbury achieved its biggest score ever. Its previous best score was the 55 points scored against Combined Services on August 29. Before that the highest score made by any Canterbury team was 54 points agamst H.M. Fleet’s Fifteen in 1924.

It was also the third biggest score ever to be compiled by a provincial team in New Zealand The record score still belongs to Hawke s Bay which scored 77 points against Wairarapa in 1926 S a t nU t Witb 66 P° ints aeo *-ed against Manawatu in 1907 (. second. ’

It was not, however, the largest score of the season in first class Rugby; the British Isles beat the combined Nelson - Marlborough - Golden Bay-Motueka team by 8 64 points to 5. y