H. Tainui Is Third Half-Back To Be Tried This Season

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 September 1947, Page 9

H. Tainui Is Third Half-Back To Be Tried This Season

H. Tainui, who will be the West Coast half-back in the representative match with the Canterbury subunions at Greymouth on Saturday, will be the third half-back to be tried behind the provincial scrums this season. F. Roberts played in that position against Canterbury and against Buller at Hokitika, K. Hor-; rack replaced him for the Marl-J borough and Buller Seddon Shield; matches and for the return home-] and-home match with Buller at' Westport and now Tainui replaces Horrack. j Tainui is no newcomer to representative football, having played for West Coast some years ago and has : previously been nominated for N.Z.I Maori teams. His passing is the best feature of his game, and at its best it is quick, accurate and long, and often of the “dive” variety made so popular by Craven of the 1937 Springboks. Tainui is at his best on attack and behind a winning pack—he is not so impressive when the forwards are getting through on him. Jottings P. Eastgate’s rotund appearance is deceptive. He is fit and rugged and has thoroughly earned his place in the front row of the provincial scrum. J. Lindbom has probably not experienced a worse day at goal-kick-ing than he had at Hokitika on Saturday.

R. Tinnelly was not the most successful of the Grey mouth forwards on Saturday. M. Stoop will have to improve his handling before he can win his way back into the representative team. P. Hurren had yet another change of place on Saturday. He played on the wing and gave a good display. He has certainly “moved around” in the past couple of seasons, and has reached the stage of being a utility man.

C. K. Saxton; and others, too, say there is only one pace at which to play football —“flat out”. But it takes some players a long time to find this out and realise the importance of it. There were “jog trotters” among the Greymouth pack on Saturday again. Found His Place R. Stoop, who played at second five-eighths for the West Coast in two Seddon Shield matches and one other this season, is now making a name for himself at full-back for Westland. Against South Westland he was credited with a faultless exhibition and there was little that was wrong with his play on Saturday against Greymouth, except for his failure to find touch and save his forwards some purposeless running about several times in the first spell. He has a good pair of hands, a good tlrn of speed, kicks well with either foot and, above all, he has football sense. He might have been a useful all-round emergency for the representative team for Saturday with his ability to play in nearly any position in the backs.

THIRD GRADE TEAM TO PLAY ALBION

The West Coast third grade representative A team to play Albion (Christchurch) at Greymouth on September 20 has* been chosen as follows: — Backs: T. Burley: P. May, I. Hay (vice-captain), W. Kelly; R. Conaghan, J. de Goldi; W. Williams. Forwards: B. Stewart, J. McNulty, D. Sheldon; C. Dalziel, A. Scalmer, B. Guerin, A. -Parfitt; S. Garforth (captain). Emergencies: W. Hewison, N. Curtis, D. Bright, P. Hutton, F. Hoffman. Managers: Messrs B. Watkins and Higgins. Local manager of the visiting teaffi: Mr H. Jackson.