50 Years Of Hurunui Rugby

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30452, 28 May 1964, Page 10

50 Years Of Hurunui Rugby

Although the Hurunui Rugby Sub-union will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary this week-end, Rugby in the district has a history going back much earlier than 19.14, when the sub-union was granted official recognition. In a booklet compiled by Mr R. Harvey, of Waiau, for the anniversary, it is recorded that ‘ matches were played between the Kaikoura club and an Amuri club as early as 1888. Regular matches were played amongst three teams Waiau and Cheviot—from 1903, but a clause of the sub-union rules of the Canterbury Rugby Union stated that a sub-union “shall consist of. not less than four teams.”

This was eventually changed to not less than three teams to allow Hurunui to be constituted—but not until a team from the combined Hurunui clubs had made a good showing against a Canterbury XV. Players in many of those early games showed a remarkable enthusiasm, and this was supported by an equally remarkable fortitude. Possibly nowhere else in New Zealand have players travelled so far over such bad roads, hills, and so many rivers for a game of Rugby. In some cases two days of travel were involved.

When Waiau was playing Kaikoura the team left at 8 a.m. on a Friday and arrived about 5 p.m., eight players travelling by Derrett’s coach

drawn by four horses while the rest of the team travelled by horse and buggy.

The first effort towards a representative match was in 1907, when a combined Che-viot-Waiau team travelled to Rangiora to play a North Canterbury team. In 1924 Culverden, and Waiau also, applied to join the North Canterbury sub-union. Both were declined and Culverden then applied for affiliation with Hurunui and was accepted. This was the beginning of further progress in the subunion and took the number of senior teams to four. There are now six teams in the senior competition. In the next year the subunion area was extended to include United (HawardenWaikari), which transferred from the North Canterbury competitions. In 1926 . Glenmark was granted permission to play in North Canterbury.

The sub-union has an excellent record in representative fixtures, having won the Southbridge Shield, the symbol of inter-sub-union supremacy in Canterbury, 13 times since the shield was first presented in 1923. The Angus Cameron Shield, given in 1925 for competition between the champion senior club teams of North Canterbury and Hurunui,. has been won by Hurunui teams 17 times.

The sub-union- has had its share of representatives in Country teams and some have gone on to higher honours, representing Canterbury and New Zealand. The sub-union’s

first All Black was B. McLeary, who toured Britain with the 1924 “Invincibles”. The ether two All Blacks have been G. N. Dalzell and J. M. Le Lievre. All three are from the one club, Culverden. This club supplied also T. Murray, who captained the Canterbury team that beat the Springboks in 1921.

Many former players and officials of the sub-union will meet again at the celebrations at Waiau. Activities will begin with a seven-a-side’tbur-nament starting on Saturday morning. This will be followed by a cocktail party and later a banquet. On Monday, representative fixtures, will be played in five grades against Malvern. The matches will be followed- by a buffet tea.