RUGBY PLAYER’S MIXED LUCK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23946, 23 October 1939, Page 9

RUGBY PLAYER’S MIXED LUCK

ESCAPE IN TRAM COLLISION INJURED DURING MATCH <From Ouh Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, Sept. 21. Cyril Towers, the veteran Australian Rugby player, had a remarkable escape from injury when a tram crashed into another tram in which he was a passenger, on the northern side of the Harbour bridge. His luck did not last. He was injured in a match an hour or two later, and his team lost. A crowded tram had stopped short of Milson’s Point station, the. first halt on the northern side on the bridge, to allow the conductor to finish collecting fares. Another tram was following and apparently its brakes failed on an incline before reaching Milson’s Point. There was a terrific collision. The rear of the first tram was stove m, and passengers were flung and jolted in many directions. About 20 suffered injuries, nearly all of a minor character. Towers was seated near the rear of the stationary tram. He was flung forward violently, and his head smashed through the glass of the next compartment. He was not wearing a hat and he was showered with broken glass, but" was not injured. Other passengers in his compartment were cut by glass. Towers was on his way to play with his club team, Randwick, against University, in the grand final of the Rugby Union competition. Towers was shaken by the experience, but he had no thought of withdrawing from the match and rushed to the ground in a taxi-cab. In the first, half he was dazed by a heavy tackle, and required attention from the ambulance men. Early in the second half he retired to have his right ankle bandaged, and returned limning to the field. A bone in the ankle was broken several weeks before the final trials for selection in the Australian touring team, and a doctor who examined Towers’s foot in the dressing room after the match expressed the opinion that the bone might have been broken again. By playing in the match Towers equalled a record of haying appeared in 176 If’irst Grade matches. Towers would not have minded his ankle injury so much if his team had proved successful. But University won the match, arid with it the premiership by 25 points to 17. With skin torn from his knees, where they had made contact with hard portions of the ground, Towers looked much the worse for wear. He had been much below his best form, but towards the close of the match he rallied his forces gallantly, and Randwick earned admiration for a strong finish when the position was black. Only time can tell whether the match meant the close of Towers’s football career —a noteworthy and honourable one, marked by many triumphs and some rebuffs, the most surprising of these being his omission from the Australian team that toured South Africa in 1933-34. Towers,, if circumstances permitted it, no doubt would relish the opportunity to play at least one more match, and so create a new record in club football. He already holds the record for appearances by a New South Wales player in first class matches.