MAORI RUGBY TOUR TOO STRENUOUS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 August 1935, Page 14

MAORI RUGBY TOUR TOO STRENUOUS

The Maori Rugby Union footballers are human. They would he superhuman had they not shown signs of wear in the last fifteen or twenty minutes of their return game with New South Wales on Monday, states the “Sydney Referee.” The ground was very hard and fast, and their opponents fresh and tough in the forwards. The Maoris had played in Sydney on the Saturday, at Bathurst on Wednesday, in Melbourne on Saturday, and this match followed on Monday. Such a stiff programme ought to be barred. The travelling and the play were so severe that the hard game at the tail-end of it on Monday could have no real pleasure to the tourists, despite their fine spirit and form. When the Maori forwards came forth after a gruelling first half, and for a time poured through the blues, leaving them standing in some of their rushes, they looked like rising to the superhuman standard in stamina.

But when captain C. 11. Towers called Hodgson out of the pack to play first centre three-quarter, a change immediately came over the scene. The big /forward,, immediately getting ~a pass out from the half-hacks, punted very high for the follow-up. Following like a sprinter, all on his own, too, he caught Nepia napping as the ball went over the line, by diving past the feet of the full-back and scoring while

Players Would be Superhuman if Showed No Sign of Strain

.Nepia was leisurely about to force down. The will-to-win showed out in Hodgson’s football, and when Towers kicked the goal, that will-to-win returned to the blue scrummagers, and with it the Maoris’ fire and condition fell back a bit. The moral of this match, is, that those who frame ißugby programmes, should not do so with an idea that the men on tour are robots worked by electricity. These comments are not to be construed as meaning that the Maoris did not play with tremendous ginger and speed. They did. But up against a fresh team, they found the winning task too hard in the closing 20 minutes. In this Maori team are a few who would be great men with the All Blacks on tour in Gfeat Britain, notably G. Harrison, the 14-lst. forward, who is as fast and nimble as a champion 10-stoner, and C. Smith, the big, heavy, right-wing three-quarter.