MAORI ALL BLACKS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 198, 24 August 1935, Page 4

MAORI ALL BLACKS

TOUR TOO STRENUOUS COMMENT OF SYDNEY PAPEE PEAIBE FOE HARBISON AND SMITH The Maori. Rugby Union, footballers are human. They would be superhuman l ad they not shown signs of Yvear in the last fifteen or twenty minutes of their return game with New South Wales ou Monday (August 5), comments the Sydney Referee. The ground was very hard and fast, and their opponents fresh and tough in the forwards. The Maoris had played in Sydney on the Saturday, at Bathurst on Wednesday, in Melbourne on Saturday, and this match followed on Monday. Such a stiff programme ought to bc barred. The travelling and the play were so severe that the hard game at the tail-end of it on Monday could have no real pleasure to the tourists, despite their fine spirit and form. When, the Maori forwards came forth after a gruelling first half, and for a time poured through the Blues, leaving them standing in some of their rushes, they looked like rising to the superhuman standard iu stamina. But when captain C. H. Towers called Hodgson out of the pack to play first centre three-quarter, a change immediately came over the scene. The big forward, immediately getting a pass out from the half-backs, punted very high for the follow-up. Following like a sprinter, all ou his own, too, he caught Nepia napping as the ball went over the line, by diving past the feet of the fullback. and scoring while Nepia was leisurely about to force down. The will-to-win showed out in Hodgson’s football, and when Towers kicked the goal, that will-to-win returned to the Blue scrummagers, and with it tho Maoris’ fire and condition fell back a bit. 'rhe moral of this match is, that those who frame Rugby programmes, should not do so with an idea that the men on tour arc robots worked by electricity. These comments are not to be construed as meaning that the Maoris did not play with tremendous ginger and speed. They did. But up against a fresh team, they found the winning task too hard in the closing 20 minutes. In this Maori team are a few who would be great men with the All Blacks on. tour in Great Britain, notably G. Harrison, the 14ist. forward, who is as fast and nimble as a champion 10stoner, and C. Smith, the big, heavy, right-wing three-quarter.