Northland Forgotten

Northern Advocate, 18 September 1939, Page 4

Northland Forgotten

RUGBY football is now overshadowed by the war, and the programme of trial matches to be held next week is of purely academic interest, as the South African tour is unlikely to eventuate for some time. The annual inter-island match, however, is one of those fixtures that are hallowed by long tradition and rich in competitive interest, so that even though there is a war raging, followers of the New Zealand national game will devote some of their thoughts, in the next few days, to considering the prospects and personnel of the two teams that are to do battle in this fixture next Saturday.

To Northland enthusiasts, unfortunately, the fixture is merely another melancholy reminder of the grave neglect under which this district has laboured for years, when big matches are being selected. The 1939 season has been, for the Nbrth Auckland Rugby Union, easily the most successful on record. The North Auckland team has had the distinction of. beating two of the metropolitan representative teams—Auckland and Wellington—and, though beaten by Otago, it was not disgraced. The Wellington team was admittedly not at full strength, but Auckland’s team was the best it could put in the field.

North Auckland football followers would be less than human if, in noting that Auckland has three players in the North Island team, they did not recollect that two of them, Pearman and Schubert, were completely outplayed by Gibson and Cunningham respectively in the match at Kensington Park on July 29.

It is not sufficient that several North Auckland players were given a chance in the Minor Unions’ inter-island match at Christchurch, for there is not the honour and distinction attached tq that game that are associated with the main NorthSouth fixture. We know, moreover, that the North Auckland players in the Minor Unions’ game acquitted themselves well, helping the North to win decisively. Surely, then, one or two of them! might be considered good enough, in view of their own and their team’s performances this season, to take their place in the biggest game of the year. The mere fact that Mr. E, McKenzie has failed to see the North Auckland team in action should justify the North Auckland Union in a strong protest against' failure to give the district’s outstanding players the recognition that they have indisputably earned.