SPLENDID TEAMS THAT WON FOR NEW ZEALAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 804, 26 October 1929, Page 28

SPLENDID TEAMS THAT WON FOR NEW ZEALAND

4 Tale Of Earlier Games

WALLACE’S SCORING RECORD THAT MAY NEVER BE EQUALLED

For the first time in Rugby history Australia has won a rubber of Test matches with New Zealand—has won, indeed, the full set of these games. Once, though, New Zealand beat Australia in all Three Tests of one season. Remarkably strong teams represented New Zealand in some of the earlier matches with Australia—teams studded thickly with the names of players that are household words in the Dominion’s Rugby. Many of them are recalled in the appended article. Comparisons of All Black touring teams being inevitable, this article may uncover material for discussion of past and present sides. The difference in the conditions under which the game has been played, and under which its players have been recruited, should not be overlooked, though.

iUST a bald list of matches, yet what memories of great players it evokes! Glancing over the record, published in The Sun a few days ago, of Rugby matches between Australia and New

Zealand, ‘my thoughts vent hack over more than a quarter of a century, to one of the finest Rugby teams that ever left New Zealand. Many old-timers, indeed, declare that it was the best team this country ever mobilised for an overseas trip, and 1 am very much inclined to agree with them. That New Zealand team of 1900, which played one J est match with Australia—fhe first, of the 17 Tests that have been played between the two nations—was a finely-balanced combination of famous players who were at the zenith of their form and of younger men whose form was flowering into the bright bloom of the 1905 tour of the British Isles. Consider the members of it who played in the Test. As full-back there was the incomparable Bally Wallace, one of lb© most versatile backs New Zealand c\er had, and a truly great full-back. Will Wallace’s record of points scored for New Zealand ever be equalled? It Is hardly likely. the matches in which he Aore the Mark jersey with the silver fern-leaf Wallace scored 367 points, made up of 34 tries. 111 conversions <»f tries, nine penalty poals, two goals from marks, and two goals from the field.

The New Zealand three-quarter line In that Test match consisted of “Opae” Asher, of Auckland, a very skilful and fast winger, who was fond of hurdling opponents, and who, in his old football age, took up League Rugby aud also became a firefighter in Auckland; Dick McGregor, a great Auckland centre three-quarter; and Duncan McGregor, brilliant flvc-cightli and wing threequarter, of the Linwood Club and Canterbury representative team. .Timmy Duncan, famous Kaikorai Club and Otago representative player, and •'Morry** Wood, then a (Canterbury representative, were the five-eighths—- « splendid pair. Harry Kiernan, one of the best half-backs Auckland ever had, was behind the scrum, and Dave Gallaher, who afterwards captained the 1905 AH Blacks, was the wing-forward. Great Pack of Forwards.

Talk to an old-timer in Wairarapa Rugby' about the game in the district •cross the Rimulakas, and it will be only a minute or so before you bear the name of Udy. Lists of Wairarapa teams from 1880 onwards are sprinkled thickly with L’dys of different ©nee or twice as many as lour Udys in one representative team, several times fnree of them. There was one, Dan Udy, in the Test at Sydney 26 years ago. With him in the front row of the New Zealand scrum was George Tyler, cleverest hooker Auckland has produced, and an All Black in 1905. Bcrnic Fanning, Canterbury’s greatest lock, and one of the best two locks New Zealand has had—the other was Billy' Cunningham—held the scrum together. George Nicholson (Auckland). Ru Cooke i Canterbury). Paddy Long (Auckland), and Archie McMinn (Wairarapa) made up a splendid Test match pack—a pack that put all its weight in the tight work and was skilful and dashing in the

Well, Asher, Dick McGregor, and Tyler hopped over the Australians* line for tries; Wallace converted a try and kicked a penalty goal aud a goal from a mark; and Wood kicked a goal from the field. Goals from marks were worth four points apiece in those days, and New Zealand won by 22 points to three, Sian Wickham kicking a penalty goal for Australia. That New Zealand team of 1903. which was captained by* J. Duncan, played 10 matches in Australia, and won them all, scoring 276 points to 13. Its line was crossed only twice, a goal from a mark and a penalty goal being the other scores against it. The All Black team of 1905 played some matches in Sydney before it set out for Great Britain, but it did not play a team representing Australia. Itowevcr, while the All Blacks were on the high seas an Australian team—l 3 players from New South Wales and eight from Queensland —captained by Wickham, was touring New Zealand. After Canterbury had scored eight points to three against the visitors—- ‘ Doddy” Gray scored both tries for Canterbury—the Australians went on to Dunedin, to play the one Test match of their tour. Pretty Good Second-Strings! In July of that year the present writer had watched E. H. Dodd and L. L. Watkins, a very line pair of bookers for the Wellington College Old Bovs Club, getting the ball from the All’Black hookers in the match, played in heavy rain, in which a \\ ellingtonWairarapa team beat the All Blacks by three points to nil. Dodd scoring a try, but it must be said that Steve Casey (Otago) was not hooking with George Tvler that day. Dodd and Watkins hooked against* the Australian team in Dunedin, and they were not worried by the fact that an eight-man pack opposed New Zealand's seven. Jack Spencer, a fine forward—youngest of five brothers who all played senior football for the fid Melrose Club in Wellington, one of them. George, being also a New Zealand representative full-back—captained the New Zealand side. Those tigerish Melrose forwards!—but let us not go ©IT at a tangent. Tom Cross, the •‘Angry*’ Cross of many representative appearances for Canterbury and Wellington, was in that New Zealand

pack. A. 11. (‘‘Boiler”) Francis, of Auckland, particularly good in the line-out, was another. Southland had two representatives of one of its football families, C. Purdue and F. Purdue—another of the clan, incidentally, played for Southland against Otago this week. Archie McMinn was the wing-forward—too good to leave out, but not needed as a hooker with Dodd and Watkins there. All these forwards are well remembered to-day, but two or three of the backs have become well-nigh forgotten. G. Burgess, the half-back, came from Southland; W. Smith, a five-eighth, from Nelson. E. Wrigley, of Wairarapa, was better known. R. Ben net, the centre three-quarter, was an Alhambra man who represented Otago for over 10 years, hut who appeared for New Zealand only the once. The whole three-quarter line was Otago’s, for those tine players Colin Gilray and D. G. MacPherson were the wings. As fullback there was Canterbury's 4 \Jum” Turtill.

The New Zealand three-quarters that day were better than their connecting links with the scrum, but Wrigley got one of the four tries for New Zealand. Archie McMinn helped himself to a couple of tries, and “Angry” Cross got the other. Francis converted one, and New Zealand won by 14 points to three, D. J. McLean, a wing three-quarter, scoring a try for Australia. One of the men in that match played for both Great Britain and Australia against New Zealand. Blair Swannell, a craggy forward who played well above his weight, came to New' Zealand in 1964 with D. R. BedellSivright’s British team. He left the team in Sydney, and collected Metropolitan, New South Wales, and Australian caps between 1904 and 1907. The Great war reunited Swannell and Bcdcll-Sivright in death. Three Tests Played.

Pass on, now, to 1907, when, for the first time, a series of three Tests between New' Zealand and Australia was played. All Blacks of 1905 made up the greatest part of the formidable side which went across tnc Tasman in 1907. Among those who had not gone to Great Britain were Canterbury’s Frank Fryer; another Frank, sumamed Mitchinson, from Wellington, one of the cleverest backs and finest sportsmen I have met; George Spencer and bis brother Jack; Marry Paton and A.Eckhold from Otago; and Ned Hughes, who learned his hooking in Southland and played for Wellington in post-war days when he was over 40 years of age. Another was J. Colman, a wonderfully versatile player, whom I have seen playing at various times, in every position in the hacks, and also as wing-forward, in Taranaki club and representative football. For the first Test in Australia in 1907 Colman was wing-forward, for the second be was full-back.

For the three Tests the New Zealand three-quarter line was unchanged—Wallance, Mitchinson, Fryer. Resisting the temptation to recall old Poneke days with the reappearance of the names of Billy Wallace and Frank Mitchinson in conjunction, let us note that the fiveeighths and the half-back were also* unchanged for the three Tests—Jimmy Hunter, H. J. (“Simon”) Mynott, Freddy Roberts. For all that they played for clubs in different geographical sections of the Taranaki Rugby Union’s widelyscattered senior competition. Hunter and Mynott fitted together marvellously as a pair of five-eighths—l dare to assert that they formed the finest combination of two five-eighths that New Zealand has ever had. They claimed n<7 selfish monopoly in the “stunts” they worked out for themselves. As it were yesterday, T remember a day, just before the 1907 team left for Australia, when, on a practice field at Miramar, now a suburb of Wellington, Jimmy Hunter and “Simon” Mynott unfolded every trick in their repertoire, for my special benefit. Billy Wallace and Frank Mitchinson, in the Poneke Club’s, gymnasium, and .Timmy Hunter and “Simon” Mynott, on the field, showed me several points with which they afterwards dazzled the Australians. A Notable Vanguard. Now look at the forwards. Steve Casey and Ned Hughes in the front row of the scrum for each Test: Billy Cunningham as lock. Charlie Seeling, perhaps the greatest of New Zealand forwards, played in the first and second Tests, but stood down for the third, to let Jim O’Sullivan (Taranaki) in. “Boiler” Francis and “Massa” Johnston —you remember “Massa”, of Otago?— played in all three games; Alec McDonald, now’ Otago’s representative on the New Zealand Selection Committee, in the first match; and George Nicholson in the second and third. E. E. (“General”) Booth was full-back for two occasions. George Gillett, then of Canterbury but later, before he turned to League Rugby, an Aucklander, was wing-forward for the second and third games. New Zealand won the first Test by 26 points to six. Mitchinson scored three tries, and Seeling, Hughes, and Francis one each. Wallace converted four tries. Australia’s six points came from penalty goals. The second match was closer, New Zealand winning by 14 : points to five. Seeling, Wallace, Francis, anti Hunter in that order, were the trygetters, Wallace converting one try. Australia’s scorer was the famous Messenger, who got a try and converted it. The third match was drawn, five points each. For New Zealand, Mitchinson scored a try which Wallace converted, and for Australia F. Wood got s try and converted it. A retrospective glance over other teams that have played Test matches with Australia must be left until a later date. A-L-C.