HALF-BACK HAD HARD TASK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18450, 28 April 1928, Page 7

HALF-BACK HAD HARD TASK.

TWO WING FORWARDS WATCHING HIM. (Specially Written for the “Star” by BEN IVESON.) Canterbury has produced many topnotch half-backs. They make an arrav of high-grade quality down through the years from W. C. Dailey, H. M. Taylor. P. J. Burns. Peter Harvey, to J. Donnelly, that great little champion who did so well against those burly forwards of Stoddart’s team. Taking a high place among the Canterbury men behind the scrum is A. E. Cooke, in his day the best in the Dominion. Pluck, determination, and cleverness were among the stock-in-trade of this old Red and Black champion. No rush was too hot for him to get down to,, and there were some warm clashes in the match between New Zealand and New South Wales at Christchurch on September 15, 1894 when Cooke had to face forwards of the type of P. M. Lane, A. Hanna, C. Wibund, J. Carson and Scott. In those days of New Zealand football the halfback had to be a m&n of exceptional courage because there were always two wing forwards—usually allowed plenty .of latitude by the referee—ready to pounce upon him and handle him as a watersider would a sack of potatoes. He needed, further, to be smart and 'tricky to evade those wings, especially if they were of the type of “Offside” Bill M’Kenzie or Dick Oliphant. A. E. Cooke filled all those qualifications and had a Dominion-wide reputation for sterling play in a day that was not so flush of representative matches as our time, nor when so much propaganda boosting players was in evidence. Were football played thirty to thirtyfive years ago as it is to-day, when considerable attention is given to back play and forwards are schooled to handle a ball like a back, the subject of this notice would have stood out more brilliantly still as a half-back. But it was a period when most of the North Island Unions, at any rate, were principally devoting their attention to forward play, and turning out their Bill M’Kenzies, Bill Watsons, Dick Oliphants, Bill Bayleys, Tom Paulings, Sam Cockrofts, Tom Ellisons and Rody Grays, whose masterpiece was to smash up any concerted back play by nipping in the bud any attempt at such initiation by the half. It this kind of play that A. E. Cooke was up against, but his ability and gameness never suffered. The South Island in those days was developing the back game from the lesson taught them by Stoddart’s British team, but they had to play the two wings in order to protect their half. Now the old type of wing forward has been consigned to the football scrapheap, where he should have been relegated the season after Tommy Ellison gave a display of it with the Wellington team in the South in 1891. To-day the “wing-rover” is kept in his place—or should be—and the half has an opportunity to show his skill and to develop the kind of play the public pay to watch. In A. E. Cooke’s day the operations of the half ■frere cramped owing to the attention of the wingforward, and in the circumstances a player behind the scrum who could give an exhibition of the half game as it should be played—and A. E. Cooke was one of these —was woeth going a long way to see. This old-time Canterbury player was half-back in the Canterbury representative team in 1893. playing against Otago and Southland; in 1894', against South Canterbury, Taranaki and New ! South Wales; and in 1895, against Wellington, Wairarapa and Auckland. In' 1894 he was half-back in the New Zealand team against New South Wales.

Associated with A. E. Cooke (who must not be confused with the North Island player of to-day who has the same initials) in his playing-days were such. sterling Canterbury footballers as “Tiddley” White, J. W. H. Uru, C. Rides, W. Samuels, W. Sanders, E. Scott, H. G. Stringer, James Stokes, J. Soffe (who also represented Wellington), J. Patterson, W. W. Price, L. W. Apperley, W. Balch, G. Duke, R. Driscoll, T. I. Cowlishaw, F. Childs, J. D. Fraser, Harry Frost, G. Forrest, W. Fitzgerald, G. Forbes, A. Ebert, G. Evans, Bernie Fanning, Joe O’Brien, L. Oram, Sid Orchard, Jack Moir, P. Menzies, W. Mendelson, R. Mathison, Fred*Hobbs, A. Hobbs, C. W. Garrard, W. Humphreys, A. R. Johnstone, A. Kerr, W. Lang, M. Lynskey, C. Lorimer and J. M’Kendry.