Old Friends Coming With Wallaby Rugby Team

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 252, 21 July 1936, Page 14

Old Friends Coming With Wallaby Rugby Team

A Hawke’s Bay Opinion Of Wellington Football

(By

W. H. BICKLEY.)

□THIRTY players chosen by Mr. Mark -4 Nicholls are now training for the match against Hawke’s Bay in Wellington on August 1. A Hawke’s Bay critic surveys the situation in these words: “The Wellington representative side, with Eric Tindill, Joey Sadler, Jack Griffiths and J. Fleming competing for three inside positions, presents a pretty problem. Perhaps the selector will take the line of least resistance and place Sadler at half-back, Tindill first and Griffiths second five-eighth, with Fleming at centrethrequarte. On his game against Hawke’s Bay last September at centre Fleming was very impressive. “The 'great weakness in the Wellington possibles appears to be their forwards, a weakness that has been evident for many wars. This winter, more than any other, Wellington club football has seen an immense crop of potted goals, and with Griffiths and Tindill operating in a representative match this pair will be a constant danger to the opposition. Tries may be difficult to obtain, but the four points attached to the field goal are a great aid to victory.”

“The Big Boy From Bombala.” The New South Wales Rugby Union had a fine field from which to select the manager of the Australian Rugby team which is to tour New Zealand. Among the six nominated for the post were Sid Malcolm.’ very popular in New Zealand as captain of the 1928 New South Wales team and the 1931 Australian side, C. E. Morgan, a life-member of the New Soutn Wales Rugby Union, and manager of several tours to New Zealand and Queensland, and E. G. Shaw, a New South Wales representative in his playing days, and a highly-successful manager with the 1926 Waratahs in Great Britain. The union chose Gordon Shaw, affectionately known as “the Big Boy from Bombala.” A man of immense physique, he is a flourishing station owner, his property being at Bombala. A jovial personality with a gift of amusing speeches, he is certain to be popular in New Zealand.

E. S. Hayes, of Queensland, who is to i-aptain the team, is a centre-threequarter renowned for steadiness in defence, as much as for skill in attack. He is rather retiring and reserved, but appears to have the respect of both friend and foe, judging by the opinions of those who have mat him. Ron Walden, the vice-captain, is a big forward, who learned the game in the country. He played for New South Wales in 1933, 1934 and 1935, and for Australia against New Zealand in 1935. Waikato on Tour.

Waikato, already beaten 28-13 by Auckland at Hamilton, and 22-17 by Auckland at Auckland, went down 11-3 to Taranaki at New Plymouth on Saturday on a ground that was like a swamp. As Auckland beat Taranaki 21-17 at Auckland, it can be said that the teams ran just about true to form. The Taranaki selectors made a clean sweep of inside backs for this game, trying out a new half-back and two new fiveeighths. There was not much opportune ity for judging the success of this experiment, as the day was one for forwards, i The Waikato team is now on tour, and will play Wanganui to-morrow, Wairarapa on Saturday and Hawke’s Bay the following week. Judging by reports of the matches against Auckland and Taranaki, Waikato has a morerthan-average half-back in L. Russell, while A. J. Aitken is showing good form at centre, and D. Buick has been a great success on the wing. Prominent in the forwards are J. G. Wynyard, the 1935 All Black, and Johnnie Leeson, the 1934 All Black. The touring players are: — Backs: A. Lissette, D. Buick, K. Reid, A. H. Griffiths, J. Carroll, J. Dempsey, A. J. Aitken, L. Russell, J. Cole, and GSolomon. Forwards: F. Cassidy, J. Tristram, G. Chitty, J. M. Taylor, E. H. Catley, J; Leeson G. Leeson,. J. Sharpe, T. Thompson, J. G. Wynyard. Two players, I. Lewer and L. Pardington, were not available.

“Wild Bill” Coming Again. Old friends in the Australian Rugby team to tour New Zealand are W. H. Cerutti, O. Bridle and E. Bonis, all forwards, who were in the last Wallaby side in New Zealand in 1931. “Wild Bill” Cerutti was also a member of the New South Wales team which paid a visit in 1928, so that he is no stranger to playing fields in New Zealand. He has always been credited with liking his football “piping hot.” It has been recorded that after his first encounter with a famous All Black hooker who had the habit of distracting the attention of opponents from the business of getting the ball by letting his beard

grow for about three days before a big game, so taht comfortable entry of a scrum was impossible for anyone on tne opposing side, he went away to do some quiet thinking, and for the next match against the same opponent took the field with a growth of chin stubble which nearly earned him prosecution under the Noxious Weeds Act. "Wild Bill Cerutli, however, has always impressed us here as a rather happy-go-lucky man, with a liking for a hard game followed by amicable fraternising. He holds the record Uor appearances for New South Wales, and it will be a fine tribute to his physique and fitness if he is selected this year in the team to represent Australia against New Zealand for the Bledisloe Cup. Owen Bridie, the Victorian, is a lathy ■forward of considerable pace whose long suit is effectiveness in the loose and the line-outs, and Eddie Bonis, the Queenslander, is the star hooker of Australia. All three were in the Australian team which toured South Africa in 1933.

About Players. Charlie Robins, a former Wellington representative, who has this season represented North Auckland, has returned to Wellington. He will not be here for long, however, as he has been transferred to Napier. Lady Bradley (first five-eighth) and Harry Rolls (back-row forward), clubmates in Napier, had a field day together for Hawke’s Bay against Wairarapa on .Saturday. Rolls scored three tries and might easily have gained two more, while Bradley scored two tries, converted five and potted a goal. Charlie Diack, former Southland, Otago and Marlborough representative, now coach to Waitohi seniors in the Marlborough competitions, and one of the Marlborough selectors, turned out for his club recently when it was a man short. The team played seven forwards and eight backs, and ran the leaders of the competition, Opawa, to one of the closest calls this season.

Jack Sullivan, the Taranaki representative centre, scored five tries in a recent club game and had the distinction of being carried shoulder high off the field by delighted club mates and spectators. A Taranaki writer comments: “Just at present not one centre-threequarter in the Dominion appears to have better qualifications for, or chances of, filling the All Black centre position than the Taranaki ex-amateur sprint champion.” Ul-luok dogged the Auckland selector, Mr. J. H. Muir, in making his final selection of a team for the southern tour, as A. Knight found himself unable to obtain leave, and H. F. McLean, having undergone a medical examination last week, was ordered to have his appendix removed, which means the finish of his football, for the present season at least. Cyril Pepper is now able to travel, and with Bill Hadley also available there will be three of last year’s seven Auckland All Blacks in the party..

Wallaby Hammon. Picking H. D. Hammon, formerly of Auckland, as a five-eighth in the Australian team to visit New Zealand, the Australian selectors have given him honours he would probably never have won in New Zealand. Though he played as a wing-threequarter for Auckland, it is doubtful if he would ever have been an All Black. At Auckland Grammar School he was a champion sprinter, and it is significant of the importance attached to sheer speed in the backs in Australia, right from the scrum to the wings, that he soon became a five-eighth after moving to Victoria.

Tom Pauling, who is included in the team as a forward, is the son of T. Pauling, who was a Wellington representative in 1895-96, a New Zealand representative in 1896 and 1897, and a New South Wales representative in 1898 and 1899. In 1896 he played in the pack against Queensland in Wellington, when New Zealand won 9-0. playing two wing-forwards, “Off-side”- MeKenzie and R. Oliphant. He was also a member of the team which _ visited Australia the following year, winning nine games and scoring 228 points to 73, the backs including Alf. Bayly (Taranaki), “Slip” Allen (Taranaki). “Skinny” Humphries (Taranaki) and Jimmy Duncan (Otago). In those far-off days New Zealand teams were equipped with white shorts and players had gigantic fern leafs embroidered on the left breast of the jersey, the traditional decoration being at least six inches long. Moreover, at least’eyery second player sported a moustache.

The draw for next Saturday’s senior grade first division Rugby football matches in Wellington has been completed by fixing the Poneke-Petone match for Athletic Park and the Wellington College Old Boys-Wellington match for Petone.