CHARITY RUGBY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 226, 22 August 1935, Page 2

CHARITY RUGBY

SECONDARY SCHOOLS. EXCELLENT FIXTURE. Next Saturday the annual charity match will be played at the Showgrounds between St. Patrick’s, Silverstream, and Sacred Heart, Auckland, the proceeds of the game to be handed to the Mayor for the relief of local distress among the unemployed. If the records of the competing teams are to be taken as a guide to form, Saturday’s match should provido one of the best expositions of Rugby in the Manawatu this season. Few New Zealand colleges can claim to have such a striking record in its first five years on the football field as St. Patrick’s Silverstream. Since the college was opened in 1931 the first fifteen has engaged in nineteen inter-collegi-ate matches. Of this number fifteen have lieen won and four lost. Points scored for total 271, with only 89 against. Last season the firsts took part in the "Wellington Rugby Union's third grade competition, playing eight games, winning seven, losing one, and scoring 147 points with 28 against. Many of last year’s team, who will be remembered locally for their fine performance in defeating High School. 16—0, are still at college, and will be playing again on Saturday. The added experience these players have acquired, together with intensive coaching and excellent combination, has made the backs a very resourceful and powerful attacking combination. In their previous college matches this season they have proved that they are straight runners possessing good pairs of hands and deceptive swerves. The forwards are a well-balanced pack who have been taught the necessity of nourishing their backs. Sacred Heart played in Palmerston North in 1930 when they were defeated by St. Patrick’s College (city). Last year they had a very strong fifteen, and finished the season in second place to Auckland Grammar, the college champions. Included in last year's side was Eric Wordsworth, one of New Zealand's secondary school representatives in the intra-Empire competitions at the Melbourne Centenary. At one stage of his career, Wordsworth held thirteen secondary high school athletic records, and eight of the nine intermediate grade Auckland inter-collegiate championship records, ranging from short sprints to long distance. Old boys of the college have been prominent in many spheres of sport, numbered amongst them being Athol Mahoney (All Black), W. Hassan (New Zealand diving champion. It. Smith (New Zealand double sculls _ rowing champion), P. Hackett (New Zealand high jump champion. whose jump of 6 ft. llin. is the highest registered by a New Zealander), Mr N. Snedden (a New Zealand cricket selector), and the late Flying-Offi-cer Gilman, who was killed when his ’plane crashed in the historic Melbourne Centenary Air Race. This year’s team, who are very proud of "their haka, which will be given before the game, had had the assistance of Hadley, the 1928 All Black, as coach of the forwards. Though Sacred Heart have played two matches against St. Patrick’s (city) they have not played St. Patrick’s Silverstream before, and both teams will, therefore, be doubly keen to win the coming match, which should be highly interesting if the grounds are suitable.