RUGBY IN AMERICA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22608, 22 December 1936, Page 14

RUGBY IN AMERICA

TEAM FOR DOMINION ARRANGEMENTS IN HAND UNIVERSITY PLAYERS The possibility of a visit being made to Australia and Now Zealand in 1938 by an American Rugby football team was mentioned yesterday by Mr. J. T. Wvlie, a former Auckland and New Zealand Rugby forward, who arrived by the Niagara from Vancouver. For the last 23 years Mr. Wvlie has lived in California and lie lias spent much of his spare time in teaching IJugby football to tho students of Stanford University. During his visit to New Zealand and Australia he hopes to advance negotiations which have already been opened for a tour of tho tAo countries by a university team. Mr. Wvlie used to play Rugby for the Auckland University College Club and he represented Auckland a number of times from 1910 until 1913, when ho visited the Pacific ('oast of America with A. McDonald's Is'ew Zealand team. He also represented the North Island in 1910. Jn California ho tried playing the typical American type of football and then, after the war, turned his attention to coaching Stanford University students in Rugby. Since then he has played an important part in making the game popular among students, who play it after their own football season is over. Last year he took a. Stanford University Rugby team to British Columbia. He is a member of the executive committee of tho North California Rugby Union, to which there belong five university clubs. Although they needed the comj>ctition that teams from countries which had played Rugby for many years could give them, the Californian University players, were showing considerable aptitudo for the game, ho said. He was convinced that if they specialised in it as they did in the "grid-iron" game, they would be a bio to meet any country in the world on fairly even terms within a very short time. Although a recently arranged visit to California by a Cambridge University team fell through because the funds for the tour wero embezzled by one of the Californian officials, the students, said Mr. Wvlie, were very eager to visit Australia and New Zealand and lie hoped to complete arrangements before returning to the United States in three months' time.