READERS WRITE

Northern Advocate, 4 August 1949, Page 7

READERS WRITE

After reading reading the Old Girls v. Maungakaramea report on last Saturday’s hockey match played at M a u ngakaraMAUNGAKARAMEA mea, I feel it HOCKEY TEAM unfair to report that Old Girls were not at full strength, and not to mention that Maungakaramea’s two Whangarei representatives, Miss E. Hudson and Miss A. Attwood, were unable to take the field. I think Maungakaramea should be congratulated on its win without these two young players, as it is 3 young and keen team, all except two players being under 20 years of age, while two of them are 15 years.— “NOT A SUPPORTER.”

In his comment in reply to my letter, Mr Corbett states that good veterinarians endeavour to give as wide

VETERINARIAN , SERVICE

an advisory service as possible. This, to my recent

experience, is contrary to fact. Despite the many duties he enumerates, I would like to say that his predecessor was always ready with advice and always en-

deavoured to make a personal visit | to urgent cases when called upon. jj Furthermore, there were fewer club veterinarians to relieve him of the , many calls he answered. j With the call to farmers to in- j crease production, surely the saving !t of stock is of paramount importance. —“D. S. DOUGLAS" - In recent issues of your paper you | have published letters in regard to | Rugby and of interest to Rugby fol- |E lowers, and I deem j

IN DEFENCE OF OUR RUGBY REPORTS

it only just that a | word should be !| written in support jf o f your sports |

editor. It would appear that the let- \ ter writers form part of a small group l intent upon bringing discredit to a man who is doing his job in a right and proper way, saying what he thinks (which, incidentally, is something \ badly neded in Northland Rugby) and attempting to pin-point the faults in a j team which, to say the least, would not do credit to any southern club team.

Your sports editor wrote of the Northland team as he, and many others of us, saw it play, and he must be congratulated upon his summary of the Auckland match. After all, such a heavy defeat deserved the severest of criticism and your sports writer would not have been worth his salt had he not treated it to such. Very few faults on the Rugby field can be corrected without comment. Your sports editor offers good and straight-to-the-point summaries, and I am sure that no North Auckland representative does, or could, feel hurt about them. I feel certain that all senior and rep. Rugby players can take fair comment in the way it is intended; and I think that the words of the selector and coach on this occasion would have been far more caustic—“SOUTHERNER.”

Having seen the match to which “Ex-Rep.” and “A New Boy” refer, I would like to support both writers in their remarks about

another ATTACKER

Richardson. From what I saw he was

the best back on the North Auckland side. His defence was excellent and twice I saw him come out of the blue to save certain tries. ' - On attack he threw out good passes to Murray and I agree with “Ex-Rep." that Murray was standing ilat-footed. It appeared that the home side expected Auckland to win the ball all the time, and consequently, when Richardson did get it, they were standing far too shallow to move. In my opinion, Murray played rather poorly unless he was playing to instructions. Beasley could not do a thing right all day, but I feel he was probably a little stale after his Australian tour. Tin is put J. B. Smith in a bad light. However, on defence on the day he appeared to me to be yards too slow, while on’attack he consistently starved his wings, particularly Langdon. I would say that Richardson, Cherrington and Langdon would be certain of their places next time. —"AN OLD BOY.”