SELECTORSHIP OVER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 5

SELECTORSHIP OVER

PRESIDENCY BEGINNING “JERRY” CROWLEY’S RECORD. (By “Cross-Bar.”) Air J. D. Crowley, who has been sole selector for the Wanganui Rugby Union for several years, and chairman of selectors last year, has been appointed president of the Wanganui Rugby Union in succession to Dr. G. J. Adams, who retired yesterday. Air Crowley has a fine record as a player and he can look back on a five-year period of conscientious service as a selector. “Jerry” Crowley’s career on the Ruguy field bears out the contention that he was probably the most honest and hard-working furward Taranaki has ever seen. He was a player who found his way into the representative team ror his penchant for hard work rather man brilliance. Some who found places in the vanguard of Rugby teams in his day were palpably “shiners.” Their type is still forcefully in evidence to-day, but it could never be said of “Jerry” Crowley that he was ever among them. Whereever the play was tightest he played his part. Selectors who knew their job appreciated his worth to the scrum and accordingly picked him to represent their province. It was at the Kapuni primary school that Crowley first learnt the shape and purpose of a Rugby ball. He was soon in the school first fifteen. In 1901 he joined the Okaiawa Club and remained with them until he retired from the game in 1913. Very few, if any, players can equal his record as a club

man, for during the thirteen years he played for Okaiawa he missed only two games, and those because of injury. Side row of tne serum was “Jerry’s” position and his alertness there was very marked, so much so that h* was often penalised for offside. He was 22 years of age when he first represented Taranaki, in 1905. He continued with the amber and blacks until 1912. He was a member of the Taranaki side that defeated Harding’s Anglo-Welsh team at Pukekura Parkon July 15, 1908. That was a famous match in that Taranaki won on the call of time with a converted try, the only score. Crowley was credited with being- one of the two best forwards un the field. Other players in the pack looked to him as a leader and followed him with plenty of confidence. In 1911 he was captain of the Okaiawa side and on that occasion it won the senior championship, a feat it has accomplished twice in its history, in the year mentioned and again last year. It is reported that in the final game in 1911 “Jerry” refused to exercise his right of appeal to the referee on several occasions, and displayed commendable sportsmanship in leading his side to victory against Clifton by eight points to three. In those days appeal to the referee was made much more often than is the case nowadays. Although he was nominated for the North Island team on a number of occasions, and was certainly a better player than several who were selected, Crowley never succeeded in gaining a place. Quite a number of Taranaki critics believe that if he had once turned out for an Island team he would certainly have gained All Black honours. In 1923 Mr. Crowley came to Wanganui to enjoy his retirement and four years later his talents as a player and his interest in New Zealand’s national game were claimed by the Wanganui Rugby Union when he was made sole selector. There immediately fell to him the tusk of selecting sides from the River City that were to challenge his own beloved amber and blacks. Wliut feelings a selector has on occasions such as “Jerry” has experienced when Taranaki and Wanganui have been playing only he can tell. Nobody would blame him if his sentimental interest in the amber and blacks, for whom ho had played so strenuously for many years, allowed thoughts to favour them. Writing in that strain is not meant to convey an

impression that there was any disloyalty in “Jerry’s” make-up. Far from it. A selector with a greater sense of loyalty to his own team would be hard to find, and from an association of a number of years with him in his official capacity to the Wanganui Rugby Union, the writer knows that he brought to bear in his duties as a selector all the hard work and conscientious attitude ho displayed when playing for one of the strongest provincial sides the Dominion has ever turned out. Would that there were more forwards of his type in Rugby to-day, and more selectors with a determination to find the best team, irrespective of parochial interests. Whatever else may be said of “Jerry” Crowley, and he has put up with all the kicks a selector must

take in bis task <>! choosing a representative team, nwe than his share in fact, it can never be said of him that he favoured a player because hr knew and liked him personally, that he favoured any particular club, or that he had leaning towards any particular sub-union. It was his desire to get the best team out and he did it only when the players he chose could get away. In that phase of things he faced the same difficulty that faces every selector —defections after a team has been selected. Mr. Crowley was sole selector fol the Wanganui Rugby Union, which has jurisdiction over Wanganui, Taihapr, Rangitilud, Wainui-a-rua and Wuiroa, from 1927 to 1931. Last year he was chairman of the three selectors who acted for the Union. For the past few years he has also been sole selector for the Wanganui Metropolitan Union, which Controls the clubs in the city.