LAST SURVIVOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27078, 12 May 1949, Page 9

LAST SURVIVOR

NEW ZEALAND NATIVE TEAM 86th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED Mr Dick Talaroa, of Taumutu, who is the last surviving member of the first Rugby team, the New Zealand Native side, sent to Britain from New Zealand in 1888, celebrated his eighty-sixth birthday yesterday. Mr Taiaroa’s team, in six months, played 107 matches in New Zealand, Australia, and England, and one in the desert, when the ship stopped at the Suez Canal. Towards the end of the British tour they were playing matches nearly every other day, yet of the 108 games only 23 were lost. The team wore black and gold uniforms, with peaked caps, and the tour was financed privately by Messrs J. A. Warbrick, James Scott and T. Eyton. On the way to England the players stoked in the ship’s furnaces to keep fit—a ,form of training now quite out of date. Unlike their modern counterparts, the native players received no out-of-pocket expenses for their tour. Mr Taiaroa’s elder brother, John, was among the most renowned of New Zealand’s earlier footballers. He played for Otago early in the eighties and was one of the best players on the first New Zealand team’s tour of Australia in 1884. Later he-played for Hawke’s Bay. Mr Taiaroa’s grandfather was Te Matenga, orie of the leading chiefs of Otakou, who made a valiant attempt to save his Ngai-Tahu kinsmen during the siege of Kaiapohia in 1831. Mr Taiaroa's father, Hori Kerei Talaroa, sat in both Houses of Parliament. Mr Taiaroa is the last surviving chief of the Ngai-Tahu tribe. Born at Otakou Heads in 1863, Mr Taiaroa moved with his family to Taumutu when he was a small boy. At that time there were few Maoris in the district and no Europeans. Later Mr Taiaroa was sent to Wellington to be apprenticed to a civil engineering firm, and he was trained as a surveyor. When his father died he returned to Taumutu to farm, and lie later became well known as a breeder of cattle, winning, many awards at Canterbury shows. Mr Taiaroa served in South Africa with the Mounted Rifies, and was in Mafeking when peace was declared.