COOKE IS RETURNING

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31763, 21 August 1968, Page 15

COOKE IS RETURNING

The former New Zealand Rugby league captain and loose forward, M. L. Cooke, will return to Christchurch when his contract with the Canberra (New South Wales) club expires at the end of this season.

The chairman of the Canterbury board of control (Mr D. C. Wilson) told board members of this during a short discussion on publicity on Monday evening. Mr Wilson said that he believed Cooke, who left New Zealand early in 1965, was the last Rugby league personality to be interviewed on television in Christchurch.

Cooke, who played 52

matches, including 22 consecutive tests, for New Zealand between 1959 and 1964, would not be available for representative selection should he continue playing. The New Zealand council has ruled that only players not required by provincial and national selectors would be granted clearances to play overseas.

However, Cooke can play club football and would be able to coach at any level of football in similar fashion to the 1951-61 Kiwi and present West Coast selector and coach, Mr G. Menzies, who also played in Australia. Rivalled only by J. W. Raper (Australia) as the world’s leading loose forward during his international career, Cooke first represented Canterbury as a scrum-half in 1953.

He played all his schoolboy and open grade football for Hornby and, at 33, would be a valuable asset to the club, which dropped to the Gore Cup section this season after four successive championship successes.