RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30634, 28 December 1964, Page 16

RANDOM REMINDER

DENOUEMENT

This is quite out of season, because it is about football, but the story has to be told before the full delight of the thing, in the account given to us recently, is not reduced by time. -In Auckland, there is a Maori Rugby team playing in one of the less distinguished grades, and although it had its merits, punctuality.was not one of them. And so, somewhere near the end of the season, only five players had arrived by the time the game was scheduled to start. The team’s reputation for tardiness was well known, and the referee made it clear that if the team was not on the field at the proper time, the Maoris would lose by default. But to take on a full-strength opposition with five men was a little too much, even for these intrepid and

enthusiastic warriors. However the usual gathering of friends and relations was there, and from this assembly five more volunteers stepped forth. So the game began. The pakehas, of course, had things very much their own way, and kept on scoring tries. But slowly the Mabri reinforcements filtered in, until there were about thirteen players on the field. Then the Maoris started to show their paces. It was too late to effect the result—the Maoris lost, ultimately, by something like 40 to 20— but it was this spirited resurgence which led to one of the most spectacular tries ever scored.

Among the Maoris, one of the recruits, an uncle of a player who was late, was in the five-eighths. And towards the end of the game, the opportunity

arose for him to show the young fellows just how good a footballer he had been. For a few moments, age and weight were shed. The opening was there, and he seized it in a lovely weaving run to the line. But it was in rounding off this delicious movement that he erred. He elected to make a spectacular dive for the line, but got slightly off course. Cape Kennedy would sympathise. So that his spectacular leap took him head-first into one of the uprights. It was a shocking collision, and even the fact the try was awarded did not help much. The scorer was badly dazed, but was gathering himself together when the cross-bar, disturbed by the violence of the impact, slowly teetered and fell, landing with a sharp report on his head.