New Brighton set for tour

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33777, 25 February 1975, Page 28

New Brighton set for tour

A fund-raising effort which brought in more than $60,000 in two years has crowned with success an effort by the New Brighton Rugby Club to send a team to Britain to help celebrate the centenary of its sister club in Liverpool.

The party of 24 players, plus supporters, will leave Christchurch on Friday for a five-week, 10-match tour of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Four of the games will be played under floodlights, and one, against the LondonNew Zealand club, will be held in the morning. The New Brighton party will watch the England-Scotland international at Twickenham in the afternoon. The final game ■will be the big one: against the New Brighton club of Liverpool. The team, which has been extensively drilled by Mr C. R. Hockley, contains players from the under 19 to senior grades. Ten of them have yet to play senior football. The tour is seen, in part, as a chance to stimulate the interest and increase the skill of the younger members. The fund raising was described by New Brighton’s president (Mr G. T. Nolan) as a complete club effort. Each player was required to contribute S2OO towards his ( fare; the club found the rest. The team will be managed by Mr R. R. Eastgate, a Canterbury B selector-coach,

with Mr C. Smith as his assistant. The tour was first suggested by Mr B. G. Barclay, the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central, and the relations between the two New Brighton clubs were cemented by the former Mayor of Christchurch, Mr N. G. Pickering. Dr Hugh Burry, the club’s first All Black, will spend some time with the party in London.