RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31345, 15 April 1967, Page 40

RANDOM REMINDER

DIVISION OF LABOUR

Today marks the opening round of the senior Rugby competition, and all the triumphs, drama and disasters which go with it. But the large men with the large numbers, who have been out on the roads running for weeks in preparation for this great cultural o casion, probably excite less interest, if it were possible to measure enthusiasm on a machine, than the little fellows in the under-weight grades. There are hundreds and hundreds of them, all madly keen, and their fervour is usually shared by their parents and relatives. In the aggregate, attendance at these matches probably exceeds

those at senior games, and the Rugby Union may one day have to think seriously about putting the New Brighton and Albion under five stoners on at Lancaster Park at 3 p.m., to get a decent gate. Pride in the boy’s team and dub is tremendous, and, for almost all of them, there is the incentive of provincial representation towards the end of the season. Places in these teams are sought with much determination, and with such hordes of candidates, the task of the selectors is immense. Sometimes they have to rely on the advice of team coaches, and do not really get to

know thedr selections very much better than by name. Last season, for instance, a ■tittle half-back was tremendously thrilled when he was chosen for the Canterbury team in one of the very lowest grades. Then, calamity. On the day of the match he was ill. A replacement was no difficulty. The boy who played outside him in his club team took his place at halfback, and no one in authority knew of the change: they were twin brothers. A proper division of the spoils, really, one having been chosen, the other having actually played. But which was the Canterbury representativaf