N.Z. footballer dies

Press, 15 September 1976, Page 40

N.Z. footballer dies

NZPA Adelaide “I just hope his kidneys bring a new and happy life to two people,” Helen Davies, widow of top South Australian rugby union halfback, Peter Davies, said yesterday. Davies, aged 23, originally from New .Zealand, .died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital yesterday after being accidentally kicked in the head during a match on Sunday. Mrs Davies gave permission for her husband’s kidneys to be given to two patients in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital renal unit.

The kidneys were transplanted yesterday afternoon and at this early stage both patients are doing well. “He was a happy-go-lucky bloke who lived life from day to day,” Mrs Davies

said at her Colonel Light Gardens home.

“He lived for sport, especially rugby union, and his five-month-old son, Nathan. “They were very close. Peter wanted to take him home to New Zealand next week so he could be near Peter’s family. .“They’d never seen. Nathan,” she said. Mr Davies’s parents and his brother, Brian, aged 32, flew into Adelaide on Monday night after a rush trip from their Palmerston North home in New Zealand. Peter Davies left New Zealand five years ago “to see the world”. He married his Adelaide-born wife two years ago. “I don’t know what I’ll do now,” Mrs Davies said. “I think I might go back to New Zealand with his

parents and decide there whether I come back or not. “I still can’t believe it’s happened.” Mr Davies, who had played rugby since he was five, was kicked before halftime when he attempted a tackle when playing for Glenelg in the second semifinal against Old. Collegians. He failed to regain consciousness and died at 2.40 p.m.

Peter Davies was an old boy of Freyberg High School and from the same year as another rugby player who died after a kick in the head in a game in North Auckland last year. Mrs Davies, a nursing sister, described the accident as “one in a million — it was a freak. It took a fair bit to knock Peter. He was very solid.”