Rugby second-best only to oysters

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 12

Rugby second-best only to oysters

By

JOHN BROOKS

Next to oysters, rugby is the topic which most attracts the attention of Southlanders. They are solidly united as a race when the maroons are playing at Invercargill’s Rugby Park — although they do not chant “hooer, hooer,” at the sight of rampaging forwards as claimed in a television commentary last month.

But they are intensely loyal to Southland, and if there is any other team they like to see winning, then that side is the South Island.

This afternoon, these hardy rugby followers will don their tweed overcoats, fill their hip-flasks, and converge on Rugby Park. It will be a very special occasion, for the interisland fixture has only twice previously had Invercargill as its venue.

The last occasion was 1947, and it was a game which is still remembered vividly in the deep south

for two reasons. One was the orderings off. Two props who had toured Australia with the All Blacks earlier that year were marking each other in the game, and the marks were beginning to show. After one flurry, the referee, Mr James Frood, gave the famous iron man, Johnny “the goose” Simpson, his marching orders. His rival, the stocky Southlander, Leo Connolly, allegedly said to Mr Frood, “that was a bloody silly thing to do.” So he was sent off, too, and the two props left the arena arm in arm. The other big event of the match was the tackle. Fred Allen, the All Black captain who was leading North, received a “hospital pass” from one of his colleagues and was flattened by a bone-shaking dive from a tough Otago flanker, Doug Hamilton. Allen was knocked out for a minute or so, and played as an extra fullback for several minutes while his head cleared. In this position he spied a gap which South was constantly leaving in its formation. So he returned to the five-eighths station, exploited the gap,

and set up the winning try for North.

The rival centres, Johnny Smith and Maurice Goddard, scored two tries each that day as North won, 13-11. Both those gifted All Blacks are dead, as are four others who took part in that match. North also won the other inter-island game played in Invercargill, in 1925. The score was 16-5, and North was able to call on such esteemed members of the “Invincibles” as Cliff Porter, George Nepia, Bert Cooke, Jimmy Mill and the Brownlie brothers. Southlanders have a particular reason to watch today’s game with greater earnestness, because there are five maroons in the South team — and they still count Frank Oliver as a dinkum Southlander, on the strength of his several seasons of locking the provincial scrum. The fact that he was

born in Lawrence and now plays for Otago will have no relevance in Invercargill today. Southlanders remember with pride the last time they had a big contingent in the South XV. That was in 1939, when Southland held the Ranfurly Shield, and supplied eight players of the interisland game. Not only that, but South’s 25 points were scored by Alex Sutherland, Charlie Saxton, Pat Grace and Arnie Wesney — all, Southerlanders. North holds most of the records associated with the fixture, and has won 42 matches to South’s 25. In 1926 North established a record score and a record winning margin with a 41-9 victory. Mark Nicholls contributed 20 points to the winning tally, a record until Bob Lendrum scored 22 points in the 1971 match. In both 1921 and 1932 North scored eight tries, and the latter year a lanky Wanganui wing called Arthur BullockDouglas scored a record five tries for North. But perhaps the most spectacular match was in 1927, when South won by a point in a game which produced 61 points, in3 tries.

The fixture might not have been regarded too seriously in the early years. In 1904 two renowned loose forwards form Auckland, George Nicholson and “Bronco” Seeling, failed to arrive in Dunedin in time — they were in a boat battling its way down the east coast — and so two Otago players were pressed, complainingly, into service for North. The match has become of much greater importance since then. It is regarded as perhaps the showpiece of the domestic season, and although some people say it should not be used as a national trial, it has that aspect about it that hs come to stay. Earl Kirton, for instance, got his big chance to become an All Black when he was called in to the South team to replace

an injured Bruce Watt in 1963. Against expectations, South won, and a key reason was because Kirton evaded the menacing cover of North’s No 8, Tom Johnson. Result: Kirton became an Ail Black, Johnson did not. Their fates were decided in those 80 mins at Lancaster Park.

Today’s South team contains more collective experience than North in terms of inter-island appearances. Oliver and Gary Seear are two men who have become regular South stalwarts; Graham Mourie and a handful of others starting to fashion good records for North. But the players who will be chiefly under scrutiny will be the candidates for the New Zealand team to play Argentina — men such as Brian Ford, who has such a good record for South; Dave Loveridge, the perky Taranki half-back; outside him, Eddie Dunn, the forgotten man; the Canterbury front row; and, of course, Ken Stewart, the Balfour farmer now on the comeback trail.. If ever a man has had the crowd behind him, it will be this unassuming flanker today.