“ WISH WE HAD THEM HERE NOW.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18144, 2 May 1927, Page 1

“ WISH WE HAD THEM HERE NOW.”

SAYS IRELAND COULD BEAT THE ALL BLACKS. The Rev T. N. Burke-Gaffney, writing from Dublin to a friend in Sydney, predicts squalls when the New South Wales Rugby Union team tackles Ireland. His views; “I hope you arc sending a strong Rugby Union team over. They will get a good run for their money here, at all events. I may tell you that our International team this season can beat anything else the wide world over, including the All Blacks of last year. I wish we had them here now, and we’d show them how to play Rugby. In spite of this, wc arc not champion country, though we may yet share the premiership with England and Scotland, which will happen if the latter win the England-Scotland match. We had bad luck not to beat England— a solitary lapse by the full-back gave them a try between the posts, which they could not fail to convert, and they beat us 5- We were playing five reserves, but, even so, we were all over themThat match was played in London. “ Ireland met Scotland and Wales ’here in Dublin. The first was played in a mud bath, and it was not real Rugby—much more like Soccer—but we were all over them, too, and won 6- It ought to have been a great deal more, on the play. Wales were never in the picture in the last match (19-9), and, indeed, nothing could have withstood the Irishmen. I have never seen a better team anywhere, and every man of them should be available next year except the full back, who is retiring. He; is an oldish man for Rugby (forty, T should think), and is getting too slow. He has played in thirty Internationals, equalling- our record, the only previous man who has taken part in so many being one who was in the first International I ever saw, and he was playing then for the last time. Ail-, other had his thirtieth against Wales, also; but he is young, and bids fair to break the record for the four countries held by a Welshman, who played in thirty-eight. Three more seasons will leave that nowhere.” Since the letter was written Scotland beat England, and the prediction that these two countries and Ireland would finish level appeared likely to be true, but France’s surprising victory over England left Ireland and Scotland level at the end of the season.