ALL BLACKS FELT COLD.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1929, Page 4

ALL BLACKS FELT COLD.

Besides being very wet for the first match of the All Blacks’ tour in Australia, the weather must have been extremely cold. W. Dailey, who captained the New Zealanders, was reported in a Sydney paper as having said: "It was a good game, and about 50-50 was right. It was a pity it was not a fine day. You would have seen something good if it had been. "Our fellows were affected by the cold. We never felt anything like it before. Six men were affected by cramp in the second half. The New Zealand

trainers, after the match, had to cut the boots off some of the players’ feet because they could not move them.” It was a “beauty” the Poneke captain, J. Shearer, got on to Athletic on Saturday (says a Rugby writer in the Dominion). Poneke w T cre hotly attacking, when they were awarded a freekick. Every man on the Athletic side made sure that Shearer would take a place-kick at goal. Instead of doing so, however, the Poneke captain just touched the leather with the toe of his boot and was over the line before the opposition knew what had happened. It was like stealing candy from children. Over forty thousand people watched the All 'Blacks’ match in Sydney last Saturday. The amateur Rugby game is fast regaining supremacy throughout the world, and will go on increasing in public favour. Sixty thousand people, including the Prince of Wales, witnessed the match between New Zealand and England at Twickenham on January 3, 1925; 55,000 packed the St. Helens ground at Swansea to watch the match between New Zealand and Wales that year; and 25,000 were present at the match between the All Blacks and Ireland at Dublin on that tour. Which only goes to show the remarkable hold Rugby football has upon the hearts of the British public.