Rugby incident recalled

Press, 15 September 1988, Page 29

Rugby incident recalled

The death last week of Mrs Hilda Madsen, of Oamaru, recalled a famous rugby incident at Timaru’s Fraser Park on the 1961 French team’s trail-blazing tour of New Zealand. Mrs Madsen, who, at that ■time, had been a rugby follower for 35 years, was incensed by the action of the famous French flanker, Michel Crauste, in flooring a South Canterbury back well after play had been whistled to a stop. Without a second's hesitation, Mrs Madsen left her seat, walked on to the field, and fetched Crauste a telling blow on the back. A photo-

graph of two policemen and a St John Ambulance officer inviting the fur-coated woman to return to her seat appeared in “The Press.” “I just went out there to retaliate for what was done to that poor boy,” Mrs Madsen said later. "I was still mad about that Frenchman on the way home. It was only when my sons said they didn’t know whether they should be walking with me that the full import of what I had done came home to me. “I suppose I did make a fool of myself. No woman should do a thing like that.

But then a lot of people felt the way I did. As I came off the field I heard someone call, ‘Good on you, kiddo. I wish I could do'it’.” Mrs Madsen subsequently declined an offer of a free seat at the third test match between New Zealand and France at Lancaster Park. She said she would not trust herself at another rugbygame. The match at Timaru was not remembered with pleasure by Crauste and his fellow Frenchmen.' South Canterbury achieved an upset win, 17-14, with the giant Waimate fullback, Moray Watson, kicking 11 points.