Wakefield’s Shock Troops

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6902, 7 May 1929, Page 4

Wakefield’s Shock Troops

SPEEDY SCOTS AMONG CHOSEN Likely Looking British Side rSRE is the material for a likely-looking side in the provisional British team chosen to tour New Zealand and [Australia next year. W. W. Wakefield, who will undoubtedly captain the side, will have with him a squad of lusty forwards, two separate sets of tried international half-backs, and a couple of “Flying Scotsmen” in McPherson apd Smith.

Wakefield did not figure in England’s principal international {engagements in the past season, this •was mainly the outcome of his expressed wish that yougger forwards should be given a chan«®. Now over 30, Wakefield is getting on in years as footballers go. The blond crop of hair that has bobbed where the fray was thickest in many a encounter is even becopiing a little scanty ion the top. But a man may be thin iof patch and yet a rattling good forward —take C. G. Porter and Pat Ward as examples—and Wakefield is patently still a great player and great leader. His inspiring leadership carried Middlesex to the county final this: eeason for the first' time in that luckless county’s history, one of the men under him being C. R. McCullough, formerly an Auckland Universxty forward. Wakefield has played for England 31 times, and has captained the team in many of those matches. That ia player and leader of such calibre should be at- the head of the touring team is a heartening augury Qf its general quality. SELECTED EARLY

That the team should have been Selected 12 months ahead of its sailing date, and with another Rugby season Intervening between now and the opening of the tour, may strike New Zealanders as peculiar. Places have been left open, however, and it has been made clear that the selection is tentative, and that lapses from form will therefore meet with the inevitable and iftue penalty of exclusion. Besides, many of the men invited are professional men. students, or members of the Services at Home, and want abundant notice of their selection. Beamish, for instance, the Air Force skipper, is a dying-officer who will no doubt be required to make early application for leave. K. A. Sellar, the Navy fullback, will presumably want ample warning so that he may impress on the Admiralty the urgency of his plea for furlough. Fortunately, the exalted ones in these branches of . the Services regard Rugby with a more than tolerant eye. After the preliminary formalities have been completed, leave should be easily arranged. Sellar’s selection is curious. He burst into the limelight a year or two ago, won his cap for England and the adulation of the critics, and was then

moved with his ship to the South African station, amid the proper lamentations of every right-minded Englishman. He is a South African by ;})irth and education, and there was more than a bare possibility that he would have played against the All Blacks last year. Evidently he was still at sea with his sip. It is something, at any rate, that the team to come to New Zealand next year shall -number in is ranks at least one genuine Springbok. SCOTLAND’S GREAT LINE

Sellar’s place was soon filled by a class fullback in T. W. Browne, a West of Englander, whose safe fielding and jga.Uant Aa c^!in S has commended him :,3n3ali liis international engagements. Ttfjth McPherson, Smith, Aarvold and Bowcott to call upon, the team should be able to field a rare threequarter line. McPherson and Smith are fliers of physique and determination. Both Oxford men, they formed part of Scotland’s famous Oxford threequarter line of 1924-25, when the other two men were G. G.-Aitken (New Zealand) and A. C? (''John”) Wallace, the Waratah. Half of this line still survives in McPherson and Smith, and though Aitken played one match for Scotland In the past season, they have teamed more generally with Dykes and Simmers. Simmers has been invited to come to New Zealand, so three-fourths of the Scots line will be available. Bowcott, a Cambridge man. has been a match-winner for Wales. Young, strong, speedy and safe, he is richly endowed. The other Welsh backs are the halves, W. C. Powell and Frank Williams.- Then there are the Scottish halves. Nelson and Greenlees and the Irishman, Mark Sugden, who in 1925-26 earned the rare distinction of inclusion among Wisden’s biographies, a list that that year included also George Nepia and Mark Nicholls. A raw-boned set of Irish forwards headed by that broth of a boy. G. R Beamish, will at least show New Zealand honest toil as it is regarded on the green fields of Erin. Beamish and his brother, F.V., are pillars of the Air Force fifteen. The forwards are nearly-all. young. Few of them 'wore playing in big football when the 1924 All Blacks Were on tour, though Wakefield and “Dai” Parker, the fire-eating Sw-ansea huntsman, are notable exceptionS,;; ’ ; ; By J. G. McLean.