Billy Warbrick

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7297, 6 August 1930, Page 10

Billy Warbrick

The full-back of the original Maori team, that of ISB3, which toured England and the colonies, was Billy Warbrick. Tom Ellison, one of the forwards of that, team spoke very highly of Billy’s abilities as disclosed on tour and especially in international matches. In. later years, when Billy captained Queensland, and later stall when he led the Wentworths in Sydney, I got to know him very well. Men of Dominion Among the Now Zealanders we have siren in Australia were George Gillett, the Aucklander, was one of the best I can recall. Ho had played the Australian game, and could do almost anything with the ball, handling it like a crack cricketer and kicking like a star of Carlton. He had splendid physique, being tall and perfectly proportioned—an athlete every inch.. Gillett was fast and had admirable initiative, and altogether ranks amobg the few greatest full-backs Eugby has seen in Sydney. E. ‘E. Booth (The General) went Home with 1905 Now Zealand team and played in Sydney with Newtown and for New South Wales. He was one of ' those sound, gritty, keen-fighting players, who always give of their best and yet arc below the Wallaee-Nepia standard. The General developed a habit of travelling to see the great Eugger teams of the Dominions playing after he had retired, hence his 'trips to the Old Country . Noted Britishers In the 1888 English team the two full-backs wore J. T. Haslam and A. ■Paul, the forme* from Yorkshire and the latter from Swinton,, in Lancashire. -'.Both were highly rated by Australians, but one does not remember them with sufficient distinctness to rivu his own personal impressions. In 1899 Esmond Martelli, an Irishman, and C E. K. Thompson, of Lancashire, were the full-back*. Both were good all-round players, with Thompson the more solid on form out here. In the Anglo -Welsh team m 1908 wiere two first-class full-backs. J. C. M. Dykc, A Welsh international, was a perfect line-kicker, the distances he •made in very high .punts, even from positions close to touch, being remarkable. His handling and general play were good, and one would not care to say that any man in the position could kick for the line better than he did in Sydney. E. J. Jackett, the Englis international, was faster and mare dangerous, and caught the crowd’s attention more, being very slippery and attractive. He was quite different in type from Dyke, but be, too, was first class. Star of the British The greatest British full-hack I have ever seen, however, is Jian Sullivan, the Rughy League cham pion. I should rank him with Nepia, and, therefore, a little below Wallace, who was faster and more elusive. His long kicking was extraordinary, and his line-kicking for distance greater, possibly, than that of Dyke. •Sullivan is one of the immortals of Eugby, just as Harold Wagstaffe is of another type.