MAORI LEAGUE PLAYERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18099, 25 May 1922, Page 9

MAORI LEAGUE PLAYERS

TEAM FOR AUSTRALIA.

TWENTY-TWO MEN SELECTED

" FARCICAL " EXHIBITION GAME.

Twenty-two players have been selected to constitute the Maori Rugby League team to play a scries of matches in New South Wales. The team, which will leave by the Manuka to-day for Sydney, is as follows:—

Backs.—Lock wood (2), Yates, Morrison, Faulkner. Mahutu, B. Paki, Harawira, Pitman, C. Rogers, Dufty, and Ahomira.

Forwards.—Gardner, Gcmrnell, Te Whata, Lowry, Maniapoto, Lovott, Haira, J. Rogers, G. Paki, Housham. The team will be accompanied by Mr. H. Oakley as business manager, and Mr. J, Kukwi.ii, as team manager.

A match between tho A and B teams was played at Cariaw Park yesterday. There was a fair attendance of spectators, who were not treated to a very convincing display of the League code. Tho standard of play was not high, and t'he game was more or less of a scramble. Thero was little combination, and tho passing and fielding were faulty at times while too hard kicking was indulged in in the loose forward rushes. The best that can be said was that it was a good practice game for the team, which may bo expected to show much better form on the Australian tour.

The A team was much superior to the B team, which, for the first spell, played three men short, and at the end of the first spell the A team had scored 32 points to 3. In the second spell the B team was strengthened, but the A team still proved their superiority, and won by 44 points to 14. In the first spell Lockwood scored three tries for the A team, Te Whata (3), Faulkner (2), Maniapoto 1, and Gardner 1, Gardner converting 1 try. In tho second spell Tc Whata, scored two more tries for the A team, Maniapoto one, and Faulkner one, while Gardner, who had gone over to the B side, scored two tries, and Poarouroro one. In several instances no attempt was made to convert the tries. Mr. A. Murray was referee. The maimer" in which the game was contested was the subject of adverse comment at t'he meeting of the Management Committee of the Auckland Rugby Leagno last evening. One member described the exhibition "as farcical, stating that no effort was made to take the game seriously. A considerable number of spectators paid for admission to witness tho came, and manv were so disgusted that they applied for the return of their monev. . Other members spoke in a similar strain. It was decided to recommejid the New Zealand League Council, in the circumstances, to donate, the gate receipts at the g«me to charity.