RUGBY FOOTBALL

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 72, 21 September 1940, Page 15

RUGBY FOOTBALL

INTER-ISLAND SERVICES MATCH

MANY NOTED PLAYERS AVAILABLE

Nominations of players for the inter-Island Services Rugby match served to show that, with all the moves that have taken place during the war period, there is still a fine array of football talent in the military camps and air stations. The supply for Service teams seems to be undiminishing. Two splendid sides will be taking the field at Athletic Park next Saturday, and this North-South Services match can be regarded as an excellent substitute for the usual North-South match (which will not be taking place during the war period). For the class of football that is likely to be turned on by the representatives of the Services the match will attract keen interest, but its appeal will be doubly strong because of the fact that the event is for patriotic purposes.

It will be quite a gala afternoon. The band of the Royal New Zealand Air Force will be in attendance, and that alone will be an attraction worth while. Then, again, Police and P. and T. teams will be having their annual outing at Athletic Park, and that means a plentiful supply of entertainment. Altogether the events of the afternoon should give a notable and highlyattractive finishing touch to the Rugby season, and at the same time be the means of a valuable contribution to a worthy cause.

Nominees, for the South Island team included some New Zealand Rugby representatives. C. K. Saxton was one. This fine player has now represented four provinces, having been in the 1938 New Zealand side. He has played for Otago, South- Canterbury, Southland, and Canterbury, as well as for the South Island, and has given impressive performances as a halfback and also as a five-eighths. T. C. Metcalfe, a fine Southland forward, is another of the. New Zealand players nominated for the South Island team, and then there is the New Zealand University and Canterbury representative, J. J. McAuliffe. Other notables who have represented their provinces and been tried out as candidates for New Zealand teams are W. J. Fulton (Wellington), P. K. Rhind and N. J. McPhail (Canterbury), and G. Mills (South Canterbury). R. J. Kemp is another provincial representative amongst the nominees, he having represented Wellington. He has been playing in Wellington until his recent entry into the Air Force at Wigram. G. T. Kain, a South, Canterbury representative, is, like Saxton, now at Trentham, but several of the southern servicemen at present in North Island camps were looked upon as South Island representatives in the choice of players for this particular match.

Rothwell and Kerr (Wigram), Elliffe, Chalmers, Sizemore, and Folster (Taieri), Guild (Burnham), and Fear, O'Connor, and Fletcher (now at Ngaruawahia), were other nominees for the South Island side .along with several from Woodbourne (Blenheim). Amongst notable absentees from the list is G. E. Purdue, a Southland and New Zealand representative forward who played for the Trentham team in a recent match and who since transferred back to the South Island.

A formidable North Island list of candidates indicated that the selection of this side would be no easy matter for Mr. Ted. McKenzie, who was entrusted with the job of picking both teams. From the Central Command there were: J. Finlay, D. G. Barton, A. I. McAneney, J. R. Sherratt, R. Natusch, T. E. Donovan, R. P. Hansen, F. H. Fraser Smith, as well as C. E. King, most of whom are well known representatives. The Northern District nominees include: A. W. Bowman (New Zealand representative) and other well-known

provincial representatives—L. W. Schubert and A. S. Coughlan (Auckland), C. A. Gibson (North Auckland), though W. N. Carson was missing (not available). Then, too, there were: Wagstaffe, Overton, Gable, Martin, Theyers, Eckoff, Anglem, de Clifford, Smeaton, Hayes, Tappin, and Hurran, as well as O'Connor (who is a Maori representative).

From the Air Force, stations there were: L. J. Jackson (Whenuapai), Guiniven, Fitzgerald, Warren, and McCready (Hobsonville), Sargisson, Younghusband, Edwards, Spencer, Horgan, Fearn, and Farcy (Ohakea), Whitmore, Constance; McDonald, and Donnelly (New Plymouth), and Beadle, Lawsbn, Kendall, Hinton, Cairncross, and Pearse. Several of these players have figured prominently, in interprovincial matches, Sargisson as a Wellington representative and more recently as a Manawatu representative.

The excellent array of talent should account for football of an excellent order when the North and South Island Service teams step out at Athletic Park next Saturday.