Select A Rugby Team £100 For Picking Best Side Of Canterbury Players 1946-66

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31383, 31 May 1967, Page 13

Select A Rugby Team £100 For Picking Best Side Of Canterbury Players 1946-66

"IVEARLY everyone with an interest in Rugby—and in New Zealand, that includes almost everyone—has at some time felt critical of Canterbury representative selections. The opportunity of selecting Canterbury teams, however, is denied all but a handful of men. Now every Rugby enthusiast in the circulation area of “The Press” will have the opportunity of selecting Canterbury’s best team of post-war players—and of competing for cash prizes totalling £lOO.

Starting on Saturday, the sports page of “The Press” will carry articles discussing the best Canterbury players since the war. The first of them will cover full-backs, the second wings, the third centre three-quarters, and so through all the Rugby positions. Readers are asked to decide, in the first instance, who was Canterbury’s best full-back in the post-war years. With such candidates as K. C. Stuart and W. F. McCormick coming immediately to mind, it is clear that the choice will not be simple. ' ' •

(CONTESTANTS will be required to fill, each week, a coupon which will appear at the bottom of the sports feature page. Coupons must be signed, and authentic addresses given. The sports department of "The Press” will file and record the votes of individual contestants.

Then, at the end of the 11-week period, the panel of independent judges will meet —without reference to the voting from contestants—and choose what, in their opinion. Is the best team from all the players who have appeared for Canterbury in the period.

The panel—to which reference is made elsewhere on this page—will consist of seven men, all of them former All Blacks or leading administrators, who have been in a position to follow the game closely. The contestant with the team chosen by the panel, or with the team which is closest to the panel’s choice, will win £7O. The second prize will be £2O, the third £lO. The panel’s decision will be divorced from the voting

figures, which will appear each week, from the second Saturday. Entrants must have their coupons reach “The Press” by the Wednesday after each Saturday article. Entries should be addressed to "Canterbury’s Best,” Box 1005, Christchurch. There is no entrance fee. Members of the staff of “The Press” are ineligible to compete. The first article, on fullbacks, will appear on Saturday, June 3. The first entries, therefore, should be posted to

reach “The Press” by Wednesday, June 7. Each contestant Is limited to one choice for each playing position, so that at the end of the competition teams of 15 will be assembled for each entrant. These will then be compared with the choice made by the independent panel and the decision announced. Failure to return a coupon for any one week will not disqualify competitors from taking part in the final judging; the winner of £7O may have only 12 or 13 players in his team who are also chosen by the panel.