RUGBY

Southland Times, Issue 21820, 24 September 1932, Page 14

RUGBY

(By

“Onlooker.”)

The curtain will be rung down today with the Galbraith benefit match, Pirates v. Otago University. This game, although a bit late in the season, has created much interest in Southland and will probably attract as many as a mid-season representative fixture. , . _ Followers of the Rugby game m Invercargill will not forget the sparkling exhibition provided by the University team the last time they appeared here. On that occasion they were much too good for Star. .Pirates have to their credit a victory over ’Varsity in the Deacon Cup series. Since the schooldays, all of A. I. Cottrell’s Rugby football has been identified with Canterbury, except, of course, when he was playing for New Zealand. So it wds rather surprising to find that at the Canterbury Rugby Union’s dinner to the Canterbury and Buller teams, the Canterbury captain was claimed to be a product of Buller. Yet it is true that Cottrell was a Buller baby, and was at school in Westport for a time. But he entered Christ’s College in 1920, and after he left the college he played for Old Collegians and then, in senior A Rugby, for Christchurch, his present club. He has never played in Buller since he left Westport over a dozen years ago. —Christchurch Sun. In the five matches which it has played so far this Rugby season in defence of the Ranfurly Shield the Canterbury team has scored 52 points, and has had 16 scored against it, exactly half of the 16 having been obtained by Wellington. Canterbury has scored 13 tries, but has converted only three of them. A drop-kick goal from play and a penalty goal make up the rest of its points. It has had four tries scored against it, two being converted. Canterbury meet Waikato in the final shield game to-day. Some remarks by Harry Manoy, president of the Golden Bay-Motueka Rugby Union, and a former president of the New Zealand Rugby Union, at the Canterbury Rugby Union’s dinner to the Buller and Canterbury teams, were very popular, especially with officials of minor unions and of subunions, observes a Christchurch Sun writer. He made a very good appeal for visits by the best provincial sides to the minor unions. Not only would such visits help to put the minor unions on their feet financially, he pointed out, but with the experience gained by playing against the best sides in the country the minor unions would soon be in a position to challenge the major unions zith good chances of success. Captain of the New South Wales Rugby Union “Waratahs” who toured Great Britain, Ireland, and France in the 1927-28 season there, A. C. (“Johnny”) Wallace, who previously had played for Scotland when he was a Rhodes Scolar at Oxford University, has not yet given up football. Recently he played in a Rugby League final in one of the country districts of New South Wales, and scored three tries. His team won easily. It was 11 years ago that Wallace played for New South Wales against New Zealand, in New Zealand. The Police Department and the Post and Telegraph Department Rugby teams played a match for charity in Wellington recently, and 4000 watched a great game, won by the P. and T. team by 21 points to 18. There were many bright sidelights in the game. Just as play was about to begin, Sergeant G. Paine rushed on to the field and insisted on holding up things while he searched the police team. From jerseys and shorts he produced revolvers, blackjacks, knuckledusters, and various other weapons of battery to such a number that two constables had to get a bag in which to carry the ironmongery away. There were several senior-grade players in both teams. F. Fuller, the former Wairarapa and New Zealand Maori representative player, was kicking goals from all over the place for the P. and T. team; so two constables marched on to the field and put him where he could not do any more harm, by handcuffing him to. a goalpost. During the play, J. Gilchrist, the referee, mysteriously acquired a black eye. E. Barry, All Black forward, was a member of the Police team. Lord Bledisloe attended the game, and Post-master-General Adam Hamilton presented a silver cup to the winning team. The following illuminating paragraph from an English paper which was. forwarded to a New Plymouth resident lately will give some indication as to how'New Zealand news is distorted. It appeared under the headings “Rough Rugby,” “Publicity attempt to stop it in New Zealand”: “Rough Rugby play in New Zealand has ended in an unusually large number of injuries. In a match at New Plymouth one player received a fractured skull, another a broken arm, a third a severe injury to a leg, and a fourth was blinded. Several methods have been suggested to overcome this menace, and it has been decided that the names of players warned by referees for rough play be published after being submitted to a special committee. It is felt that the threat of publicity will be a deterrent to those who indulge in unfair tactics.” RUGBY AND MANHOOD CLERGYMAN’S TRUE TRIBUTE. FUNERAL OF ALL BLACK. After a deeply impressive memorial service in Holy Trinity Church, Otahuhu, there was a cortege of a mile long in tribute to the popularity of Mr B. P. Palmer, the New Zealand and Auckland Rugby player. In the course of his address at the church, the Rev. R. J. Stanton (who also conducted a short service at the graveside) said: “We have gathered together to-day to commit into the safe keeping of God one who has rightly won his way to a high position of honour amid an ever-widening circle of friends, and whose career has been suddenly cut short so far as this world is concerned. Bert Palmer was such an unassuming fellow, with a generous and happy disposition. He was held in the highest esteem by 7 those who had played with him, and among the boys of the Otahuhu district school, where he regularly went along to teach them how to play Rugby football. The boys idolised him as a hero. Returning from his All Black trip to Australia, a rousing welcome was accorded him only a few days ago. “Bert Palmer was imbued with the highest ideals of sportsmanship and manhood, and in his career at home here and in his games overseas he fully demonstrated his inspiring qualities as one who ever played the game. Perhaps there is nothing more, wonderful than for a man to pass out in the fullness of his vigour, at the zenith of his career, with his sporting instinct and his sunny nature ftflly appreciated by a wide and ever-increasing circle of friends. z “Bert Palmer was ever ready to take risks, as were all those men who did things worth while. Our national game of Rugby has been a potent factor in bringing out in New Zealand manhood the many excellent qualities which our men possess. And so from the game there are many lessons to be learned. When a nation comes up against adversity and trials, that experience of the field helps it to 'play the game.’

“While we mourn the passing bf our comrade of the field, may we resolve in the few moments we are here in this hallowed place to give a new dignity to sport, to the game of life and to our business in life.”