THE ALL BLACKS

Evening Star, Issue 19841, 14 April 1928, Page 4

THE ALL BLACKS

AN ENTHUSIASTIC FAREWELL [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April 13. Four thousand people assembled on the wharf to-day to say farewell to the 1928 All Black team on its departure for South Africa in an endeavor to win the Rugby supremacy of the world. Each member of the team was permitted to say a word of farewell over the wireless. Good wishes for the team’s success was expressed by the Mayor and the Prime Minister. The Governor-General sent the following message from Auckland:—“l send all my good wishes for a happy time.” Maurice Brownlie, captain of the team, and Mark Nicholls, vice-captain, each bearing giant tree ferns, led the team up the gangway, and at 3.16 p.m, the Marama left the wharf, severing hundreds of*streamers connecting the ship with the shore. “We want you to remember,” said Mr G. A. Troup (mayor of Wellington) to the team, “ that we are proud of you. I should like to commend to you the will to win. I am sure that your captain has the quality, and I hope you will all cultivate it. When you are away I hope you will think of New Zealand and her mountains so high and her valleys so green. Be steadfast! Fight on I Ake, ake, ake I” The selectors, said the Prime Minister, had made a'declaration that the players had been picked as much for character as for playing ability. “We know,” continued Mr Coates, “that the team will take any victories they may secure with modesty, and that they will make no excuses if defeat should come their way. The tour will have the effect of bringing the people of South Africa and of New Zealand closer together. All I can say to you is Haerc ra Kia kaha ! The best of luck, the best of good wishes, and may you return to your own people with honors surrounding you.” “ T would like to assure the people of New Zealand,” said Mr W. F. Hornig, team manager, “ that if we are defeated the members of the team will feel the defeat more keenly than will the people of New Zealand. Wo trust we will not let you down, and can assure you that we will do our best to go down'in history as a team which always played the game.” A GREAT MISSION THE PREMIER’S MESSAGE. [Peb United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April 13. The Prime Minister,as president of the New Zealand Olympic Association, delivered the following message to the New Zealand Rugby team before its departure:—“The Olympic Council joins with other sports bodies and the sportsmen of New Zealand in sincerely wishing the All Blacks of 1928 bon voyage and every success in their great mission to uphold New Zealand’s Rugby honor on the fields of South Africa. Our Rugby teams in international contests bear a responsibility that is borne by no other of our sports. The very fact of their outstanding successes over a long period of years has placed them on a peak which* is not only a standing to which onr other sports are striving to attain, but a point on which outside criticism of New Zealand sport generally is focussed. The _ All Blacks, year in and year out, are in the truest sense the custodians of our national sporting honor. Their earnest endeavors to win have at times drawn on us unfavorable, but wholly unjust, criticism, for that earnestness is hut a due tribute of respect to the great game of Rugby football. The Olympic Council feels that, in the bands of the All Blacks of 1928, two great traditions of New Zealand Rugby football —never to excuse defeat, and to take victory modestly—are safe. The Olympic team at Amsterdam will bo heartened by the efforts of their compatriots in South Africa, and they, like us, acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the All Blacks and the New Zealand and Wellington Rugby Unions for that fine expression of the true Olympic spirit of friendship between sports—the exhibition match on Wednesday, which will so materially help the Olympic team along the trail to Amsterdam.”