SCHOOL FOOTBALL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 228, 25 August 1938, Page 9

SCHOOL FOOTBALL

WANGANUI CHAMPIONS. QUADRANGULAR TOURNEY,

The annual primary schools’ quadrangular Rugby tournament was concluded on the Showgrounds yesterday afternoon with the third and final series of matches. The first was between Wanganui, who had two wins to their credit, and Manawatu, who had suffered two defeats. Wanganui played excellent football and won by 22 points to nil. They thus went through the tournament undefeated and win the championship banner. Manawatu qualified for the “wooden spoon” with three losses. The second game, which had no bearing on the' result of the competition, was between Wairarapa and Wellington, the former winning by 12 points to six.

The final positions of the teams, with points scored for and against, are as iollow:

At the conclusion of the tournament the banner was presented to the captain of the Wanganui team (S. Takarangi) by Mr L. J. Plank (president of the Manawatu Schools Sports Association), who congratulated the winners and complimented all the teams on the splendid spirit in which the games had been played. The competition, he said, had been in progress for 23 years and in that period it had been won on nine occasions by Wanganui, including last year and 1935. Mr Plank thanked the people who had billeted visiting players, the New Zealand Rugbv Union for its grant, the teachers who had coached and managed the teams, the proprietors of - the Longburn freezing works for their hospitality and the Press for their generous support.

“Yours is a name renowned in football,” said Mr Plank in presenting the banner to young Simon Takarangi. Simon Takarangi, who played such an outstanding game in the tournament, is a nephew of Mr Alex Takarangi, the well-known Maori player and Rugby administrator. That the Takarangi family are keen Rugby players is borne out by the fact that there has been a Takarangi in the Wanganui primary schools’ representative team for the past 14 years. Cheers were exchanged between winners and losers when the banner was handed over. y

For Against Wins 58 8 3 33 20 2 Wellington Manawatu ..... 17 33 1 9 46 0