Boxing overstayer in final eight

Press, 7 August 1978, Page 30

Boxing overstayer in final eight

NZPA' staff correspondent Edmonton The Samoan, Gaulua Folasi, fully vindicated his boxing selection for New Zealand — the country he wants to adopt — with an impressive display of power punching for a first-up win in the Games light welterweight division yesterday. The 21-year-old Folasi produced non-stop attacking boxing to beat a plucky 23-year-old Jamaican factory worker, Alston Cameron, by a unanimous points decision. Folasi, who must leave New Zealand after the Games, is nqw in the final eight of this highly-com-

petitive division, He will fight again on Wednesday (New Zealand time). A talented boxer with a hard-telling right, Folasi was convicted of overstaying an entry permit, but when he appealed, the Minister of Immigration, Mr Frank Gill, granted him an extension to stay in New Zealand until after the Games. He will be returning to New Zealand only for 10 days and once home in Apia, Western Samoa, Folasi will apply for permanent residence in New Zealand.

Another New Zealander, Perry Rackley, fought as well as he could. He was up against a boxer with a hard punch and the young New,

Zealander could not afford Ito go in toe to toe.

That is how the New Zealand team manager, Mr Bill Scott, summed up Rackley's loss to the nuggety Englishman, Delroy Parkes, on unanimous points during the opening session of the Games middle-weight boxing. Mr Scott said it was a simple case of age and experience (Parkes is 27) against youth and inexperience as 18-year-old Rackley appeared in his first Games. The shaven-headed Rackley, underweight by some 2|kg boxed carefully against the veteran Englishman, who has represented his country for five years.