Rugby Youth WEEKLY REVIEW

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31383, 31 May 1967, Page 12

Rugby Youth WEEKLY REVIEW

Rugby is a hard, physical-contact game. Ask Mr I. S. Baylis who coaches Marist Mairehau’s 6 stone B team; he will tell you.

Although not obviously a trencherman, he is certainly no sylph. He looked, in fact, a creditable strum machine as he matched the combined shove of his right forwards, until solid ground subsided into a sizeable puddle. Whereupon a large rear portion of his trousers was soaked, his jacket muddied, and his nose quite spectacularly bloodied. Mr Baylis, a hardy soul, then shared an umbrella with the opposition coach and watched his tough little forwards proceed to give Marist’s Xavier College team an easily forgettable debut in the grade’s B section. Marist-Xavier, relegated because of its wallopings in the A section succumbed by six tries to none. Four of them were scored by Kevin Jones, a second five-eighths who sported a splendid black eye from a previous game, and Carl Thomas, who took over his injured brother’s place at No. 8. Mr Baylis’s son, Tony, who plays for Marist juniors, coaches the other Mairehau College team which has won all its games in section C of the sst 71b grade. « « « Rain, cold or mist... none is inimical to schoolboy enthusiasm. New Brighton A loaned five players to Marist B’s 7st 71b team to make possible a 10-a-side game and after two 20-minute spells the players were as keen to stop as boys are to return to school after the Christmas holidays. Apart from impressing the fact that “we won 9-3,’’ (New Brighton actually won by default), the lads had this to say: “It should rain every Saturday.’’ “Yeah, you get all dirty.” “You don’t get hurt so much when you get tackled either.” “Aw, don’t be a softy.” “Is this going in the paper?” (Repeated). * * * The Hornby under Bst 71b team underwent a startling change at half-time in its game against Shirley, which was the fourth of the season. It had prefaced this moment wifi three decisive losses, but from being down 0-8 it recovered to a 13-8 win, and then continued to- a 26-5 triumph over High School Old Boys on Saturday. The team and its coaeh, Mr K. E. Smith, a Hornby senior reservist, enjoy a mutual respect Mr Smith, although he has added a half hour to the team’s weekly practice sessions, continues to have full attendances and his efforts are clearly appreciated for on Saturday afternoons he in turn is watched by admiring members of his squad. There is a good team spirit, too, and on Saturday when it was surmised the opposition would not be so strong as of yore, the best forwsrd in the team, Lloyd Thlstoll, volunteered to stand down, and give a turn to one of the regular reserves. Lloyd, a blacksmith’s son and helper with appropriately strong shoulders, has played a vital part in the volte face. “If you've got a couple of good tight forwards, like Lloyd, the rest will follow suit,” Mr Smith mused, and the tight, driving play of his pack against Old Boys suggested he was no heretic. The half-back, Paul Carson, verified another. of his beliefs that participation in a fast indoor sport can boost the development of a Rugby back. Paul, a keen Indoor basketbailer. showed a remarkable awareness of what' was “on,” and when. His

grasp of the basic skills to turn to account his quick thinking showed that Paul, a utility back, had found his niche.

extent of scissors and dummy-scissors between the five-eighths, Douglas Taylor and Robert Alexander, was highly impressive on a greasy surface until the Christchurch pack began placing the conditions in their true perspective.

Mr Smith is sufficiently enchanted with his team’s progress to predict that the return match with the leading Linwood side which contains under-weight Rugby’s most promising wing and prolific try scorer (Walter Argus, junior), will produce a different result. ♦ ♦ G

From the earliest days, teams with superior forwards and mud to revel in have triumphed over enterprising backs, and so it was that Christchurch went to a 20-8 win.

Encouraged by the success of the Sunday morning coaching classes which it instituted last season, the Junior Advisory Board has decided to arrange a further meeting with the Cantabrians club whose members instructed 32 under-17 grade boys on three Sundays last August and September. The board last year chose to coach the under-17 grade as it offered the best crosssection of secondary school attendees and boys who had left school. The Cantabrian coaches, Messrs B. P. J. Molloy, D. J. Graham, C. R. Hockley, S. K. Henderson and K. G. N. Orsboum, took the rough edges off their charges who were chosen more for their keenness than their ability. But the boys, now in the under-18 grade, “have, from being good triers, blossomed into good footballers," according to the board’s chairman (Mr W. V. Cowles). The Cantabrians club, which has the fostering of Rugby in Canterbury as its chief aim, is keen to repeat its contribution. None, or very few, of last year’s class represented their grade, and the benefits of their tuition became evident too late in the season to be of use to the selectors. "I think quite a few will become under-18 representatives this year," Mr Cowles said. “The only change we envisage this season is an earlier start to the classes, probably June or July.” * * #

Derrick McLennan, a Waitaki Boys’ High School lock last year, and the hookercaptain, Barry Guy, gave with tremendous gusto in their specialist spheres of line-out and scrum and were foremost in repeated and telling forays initiated from the former.

University, although it suffers from never having all its members at the same practice because of lectures, had been beaten only once before. ♦ * *

Merivale-Papanui, with its 35-0 defeat of Marist’s 7st team, has the secord of five games, five wins, 181 points for and three against There was nothing very remarkable in its win on Saturday unless it was the gymnastic effort of the No. 8, Ronald Williamson, who scored by leaping clean over the top of five Marist defenders behind their own line, or the diligence of Martin Thomas who backed up for big fullback (David Gage) and scored when that player, after a 50-yard run, dropped the ball behind the posts. ... or perhaps the prophecy of a Marist player, who, having listened to a patient summary of his team’s mistakes during halftime, proclaimed with a chirpiness common to the greyspeckled warbler, that “We’re gonna get our first try of the season this half.” Such optimism in the face of overwhelming odds deserves recognition. After discussion among the coaches and referee it was agreed that the Marist backs should play behind the MerivalePapanui forwards, and that was the explanation of the back slapping that followed when Christopher Watson, moving stealthily in their wake, pressed his hands on the ball.

Pride of all the Christchurch combinations on Saturday was the under-20 team. The legerdemain of its opposing University inside backs which went to the