A bumper year

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32349, 15 July 1970, Page 15

A bumper year

The North Auckland Rugby team is celebrating its union's fiftieth jubilee this season in the best possible manner—by winning match after match. It has beaten New Zealand Maoris, New South Wales and Fiji in its last three encounters, and has added Auckland and Counties to its growing- number of impressive scalps. North Auckland has achieved these splendid victories without its All Blacks, S. M. Going and B. Holmes. It has also lost its outstanding wing. D. R Panther, who broke a leg. The team, however, moves on regardless, led by such accomplished players as D. W. Hewitt and R. A Guy in the forwards and K. T. Going and J. E. Morgan in the backs. North Auckland has had many fine footballers and

_colourful characters in its ranks during its first 50 years, and their deeds have been faithfully recorded in an excellent 116-page booklet which has been published to mark the jubilee. The author, G. A. J. Frew, sports editor of the “Northern Advocate,” has produced a sparkling account of the union’s history, the great matches, and the notable figures on both the playing and administrative sides of the game. Some of the most stirring passages, not unnaturally, are devoted to the many grand efforts of J. B. Smith, I. H. Finlayson, P. F. Jones and S. M. Going, the most notable of North Auckland’s 13 All Blacks. The booklet has left nothing to be desired on the statistical side, and many i good action photographs and pithy sidelights complete a handsome publication.