RUGBY FOOTBALL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22719, 4 November 1935, Page 5

RUGBY FOOTBALL

UNIVERSITY TEAM FOR JAPAN (Pkb United Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 2. It is announced that. 6. A. Parsons (Canterbury University College) has been appointed captain and K. G. Bush (Auckland University College), vice-cap-tain of the'New >,Zealand upiversity Rugby team to tour Japan. CALIBRE OF THE OPPOSITION A New Zealander now resident in Tokio encloses . .the following clipping from the Japan •Chronicle: — The New Zealand University Rugby football; team which is to tour here early next year‘ will probably be a stronger side than the Australians. Rugger is, of course, New Zealand’s national game, and all the schools play it. The Australian team which came here met defeat in New Zealand on its way back by no Jess a margin than 17 points, and on its face value that means Japan will have to look out. In the Asahi recently, a sports writer made the prediction that the New Zealanders would give All Japan a good game because of their physical superiority; adding, “but so far as the technique of the game is concerned they will not be able to teach us anything.” That’s a very dangerous sort of prediction, considering that every New Zealand team that has visited England has- shown clubs of the Home unions phases of the game that they had hardly dreamed about. Our visitors may not be comparable to the All Blacks, yet they have been brought up on All Black traditions, and almost certainly will be .able to teach us a thing or two. Much, will probably depend on the scrum formation the visitors adopt. The team now playing in England has fallen in line with British ideas of forward play—by special request! —and has dropped the famous 2 ; 3-2 scrum. If the University fifteen is wise, however, it will go back to the beloved wedge, and shun all thought of orthodox 3-2-3, or the South African 3-4-1, playing instead but seven forwards, as do the Japanese teams. It is to be hoped that this point will be brought to the tourists’ notice as early as possible, for it ought to have a direct bearing on team selection. The past year or two has been a lean period in New Zealand as far as backs are concerned, but the standard of forward play is understood to be as high as ever. The New Zealand pack will undoubtedly demonstrate to Japanese teams and spectators that forwards can do more than shove quickly and heel the ball. Brilliant originality and wonderful combination and backing up has always been a feature of New Zealand teams, and there is no reason to suppose a side drawn exclusively from the universities will not be a chip off the same magnificent block. The correspondent adds:—The Japanese pack a 3-2-1 scrum. I hope the New Zealanders give a good account of themselves. The Japanese backs will need watching.

NEPIA JOINS LEAGUE CODE RUGBY CAREER REVIEWED George Nepia, who made I!ugly footba 11'fame as a full-back with the 1924 All Black team in England, is about to return to the scene of his spectacular successes. He has accepted an attractive offer, said to include a signing-on fee of £SOO, to play Rugby League football with a recently-formed club in London, and has been booked to sail for England by the Akarqa on Friday. This is the upshot (says the Auckland Star) of a series of negotiations following an offer made to Nepia some days back on behalf of a London syndicate' which controls two clubs formed this season in London, and has- been seeking star players, in New Zealand as recruits for their ranks. The great reputation established in England by Nepia was readvertised when, after missing selection for this year’s Ail Blacks, he visited Australia with the Maori team and demonstrated by his play that he

had lost none, of the dash, skill and daring with which as a mere youth he 'had 'thrilled the English crowds. ’Having succeeded in getting in Charles Smith (Hawke’s Bay), Eddie Holder (Duller), George Harrison (Taranaki) and Jack MacDonald (Blenheim), four top-class players of the type which they required, the London. promoters opencjl negotiations with George Nepia. They showed that they recognised his outstanding place in the Rugby football world by immediately putting the offer on a more liberal stale than that made to the other, players,, and when Nepia, too, indicated that he had' fully considered all the interests involved from his point of view; they quickly came to terms for a two years’ contract on a basis which should be mutually profitable. So now Nepia, the sensation , of the 1924 All Blacks in England as a youth, goes to England to join his comrades, Smith, Harrison and MacDonald, of the 1935 Maori team, as members of a Rugby League club in Londbn, probably the Streatham Club. ■ ;. A COLOURFUL CAREER. Although George Nepia, playing at fiveeighths, was well known in interprovincial Rugby in 1922 and 1923, while at the Maori Agricultural College with his cousin, Lui Paewai, it was not until the Prince of Wales Cup match at Auckland in May, 1924, that he first burst into fame. Both sides comprised Maori players and the game was an official trial for the 1924 All Blacks. Taking .the field at full-back, Nepia gave such a great exhibition that he was immediately selected as custodian for North against South Island, at Wellington on May 31. Prior to the Maori match in Auckland the Hawke’s Bay group, on May 10, had met the Auckland group, the Northern 15 winning by 18 points to 9. Nepia and Paewai were the Bay five-eighths, while Cooke and Ces Badeley were the Auckland partners. It was in this contest that Vic Badeley, playing at centre, received the injury that finished his Rugger career, the sensation of the year resulting when Karl Ifwerscn who, though ineligible for the British tour, was sent on to replace Badeley. SPECTACULAR EXHIBITION. Nepia gave a spectacular exhibition in the inter-island fixture at Athletic Park, scoring 17 of the 39 points by which North beat South to eight. He potted a goal, picked a penalty and converted five tries. Going to Britain, Nepia proved the greatest attraction there has ever been on the Rugby field. He established a record that will probably stand for all time, as he fielded at full-back in eveiy one of the 30 matches played by the 1924 All Blacks’in England. Wales, Ireland. and France. His tally _ for the tour was 70 points, comprising four penalty goals and 29 conversions of Subsequently he represented New Zealand against New South Wales in 1925, when the Dominion won 30 —10 at Eden Paik. His next appearance in die All Black Jersey was not until four years later, when‘ he was a member of Cliff Porter’s team to the Commonwealth, which lost all three tests against Australia. Included in the side were two of the 1935 All Blacks, Charlie Oliver and Athol Mahoney. FULL-BACK AGAINST BRITISH TEAM.* Nepia finished his international career by fielding at full-back in all four tests against the 1930 British team in New Zealand. A sensation was caused in 1933, when Messrs E. M’Kenzic and Frank. Sutherland chose him us full-back for the North Island, but, as in 192.>, at Invercargill, he left the field injured before the game was finished. '1 lie choice of the famous Maori player for the in-ter-island game at Wellington gave rise to a fairly general belief that the New Zealand Rugby Football Union intended Nepia to go Horae with the 1935 All Blacks; and right up to the final trial at Wellington on June U> his selection was considered likely, out the selectors picked G. D. M. Gilbert, of West Coast, and decided, as they did 11 years ago, to rely upon one full-back for the tour. Altogether Nepia scored 89 points in his New Zealand jersey, including one try, six penalty goals, and 34 conversions of tries. 'His appearances for the North Island numbered three only, one less than his years for the national side. He terminated his Rugby Union career as captain of the brilliant Maori side j

which beat New South Wales in the test rubber at Sydney last August. Many Aucklanders who" saw him blossom into international form in 1924 had the good fortune to see him in his final appearance as an amateur, for lie led his Maoris to victory over Auckland, 14 — 10, on August 24 at Eden Park.