Western Oust Veterans In Otamatea Knockout

Northern Advocate, 15 May 1939, Page 2

Western Oust Veterans In Otamatea Knockout

The knock-oul competition, inaugurating the new season in the Otamatea Rugby Union's area, was continued on Saturday when Western accounted for the Veterans to the tune of six points to nil.

Central, which will now meet Western in the final, played a friendly match at Hakaru with the local team, which was eliminated last week. The absence of a large number of juniors, who are in the military camp ai Whangarei, decided-the union to postpone further matches in this grade until the conclusion of the camp. The only other official game on Saturday was between the Central third graders and Western, the former having a comfortable win by 22 to nil. Western Boats Veterans

Expectations of a bright contest brought a large crowd to Paparoa and although by no means a spectacular contest the game was full of incident and further enhanced the reputation of the Veterans as being a fifteen possessing doughty qualities.

In the first few minutes O'Brien, following a forward scramble in. the Veterans twenty-five, fought his way over to give Western a three point lead before the visitors had properly settled down. From then on to the final whistle the visitors adopted defensive tactics, keeping the game tight and standing up close to the fast Western backs who were given no chance to get going. Both packs worked hard putting in a gruelling arteruoon., The Veterans rearguard were taking no chances with the fleet-fooiec youngsters opposite and their instructions to the forwards to keep the game light were faithfully obeyed. Full of Incident Any attempt by the home side to open up was quickly frustrated. Despite these tactics the match was full of incident with both packs striving for superiority. What little was seen of the backs in action was sufficient to demonstrate Westerns' superiority in this department. The quality of the visitors’ defence can be gauged from the fact that after die opening try Western could not break through until well in the second spell when Sterling secured, kicked ahead and proved too fast for the opo.si.lion. to score Iho final try. Shortly afterwards the final whistle came concluding a bright, interesting game with the scorer; Western 0 Veterans 0. Mr R. Julian refereed.