Southland scored biggest upset in shield history

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 9

Southland scored biggest upset in shield history

(By

J. K. BROOKS)

SOUTHLAND, today’s chal- ° lenger for the Ranfurly Shield, has good credentials in this class of football, having won the trophy on five occasions. It was the first South Island union to win the shield, in 1920, and the deeds of its 1939 team, which scored 29 tries to none in four games, stamped it as one of the best combinations in the history of the trophy. But undoubtedly Southland’s finest achievement was its shock win against Wairarapa in 1929. There have been many upsets in

shield Rugby, but this was probably the greatest. Wairarapa had 11 All ' Blacks in its team, including the fabulous midfield back, A. E. Cooke, and as it was the hundredth shield game, Cooke suggested that tile milestone should be marked by a record score. Southland seemed an Ideal victim—it had lost to South Canterbury, Canterbury and Wellington on its journey north, and some of its players were laid low by injury. There was more trouble in store for Southland. Four

of its best players—W. E. Hazlett, E. H. Diack, J. H. Geddes and R. M. Bird—were to make a special trip to Carterton for the shield game, but only Bird arrived. In spite of the enormous odds stacked against it. Southland won the game 19-16, The hero of the victory was G. Porter, a fullback who played at second five-eighths that day. He kicked two penalty goals, a dropped goal and a goal from a mark, but it was his marking of Cooke which proved as big a match-win-ning factor. So certain of victory was

the home team that the shield had been left in the window of Cooke’s mercery shop in Masterton, 12 miles away. An embarrassed Wairarapa official had to make a swift trip in his car to retrieve the trophy for presentation at the celebration dinner that night.

Southland’s first shield win, in 1920, was on its home ground. Wellington took the shield on tour, beating South Canterbury and Otago, but losing 17-6, at Invercargill. Southland appreciated this gesture so much that it took the shield to Wellington the following year—-and promptly lost it. The third Southland shield win occurred in 1937, when A. W. Wesney, a replacement three-quarters, kicked his side to victory against Otago. Southland lost the trophy to Otago in 1938, but regained it six weeks later. Its team defended it throughout the 1939 and 1946 seasons, before Otago once again wrested the prized possession from its grasp in 1947. The shield was in either Otago or Southland from the end of 1935 until 1950. Southland seemed to be poised on the brink of a splendid new shield era when it drubbed Taranaki, 23-6, in 1959. The team’s forward display that day surprised even the tough Taranaki pack. But the’ first defence, two weeks later, was an anti-climax for Southland. Auckland won, 13-9, and the shield departed from the South Island for 10 years.