THE RUGBY WORLD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 93, 21 April 1937, Page 4

THE RUGBY WORLD

SEASON BREAKING THE ICE

(By ‘

“Cross-bar.” )

Wanganui’s Rugby season is to be launched on Saturday. Like every other season of the past it has been hard to estimate the relative strengths of various teams. On paper the forces in each camp look quite encouraging, but the first Cup match will give a truer indication.

Practice matches have been played up to now and there has been the Marist Spillane Cup tourney and the participation of Pirates in a quadrangular contest with other black teams in distant Unions. and Old Boys and Feilding Old Boys have had a match. Both Technical Old Boys and Kaierau have beaten Waverley. These serve as some indication of the trend of things, but are not in themselves conclusive proof of what is likely to result on the opening day of the cup series. Wanganui and Old Boys and Kaierau have been drawn to play in the second match on Spriggens Park to open the season. There is still a vivid memory in Wanganui of the thrilling final encounter of these two sides in the virtual final of the Cup last year. Technical Old Boys and Pirates are to plav in the early match on the park and Marist are to face Waverley in their own “over the border stronghold. On paper both Marist and Technical Old Boys look to have improved sides on last year. Waverley is not so strong and Wanganui and Old Boys do not appear to have the same strength in the backs as in 1536. Kaierau can be relied upon again to make the pace. As stated earlier those opinions are formed on the more or less nebulous fluttering which goes on just prior to the opening day.

Ratana, according to all that is reliable, has left the district and the prospect of that colourful native fifteen taking the field again in Wanganui is remote. It is a pity in many respects, more especially as the Maoris fielded a first class fourth grade side last year. It is understood that some effort is being made to keep that side together, but prospects look thin at the moment, Ratana having taken his crescent and stars to the canopy of Matamata. Wanganui owes it to Ratana that he staunchly looked after the banner of Rugby Union football and, presumably, he will continue to do so.

Wanganui city management of football improves every year. There is a specially chosen board of management for junior football in operation this season. It handles the whole of the grade matches, leaving the senior and representative programme only to the Management Committee proper. The move is a good one, and will give junior and grade Rugby a sense of self-reliance which it has not quite attained when senior play has predomin ated.

Grade football is the foundation of Rugby and that fact is being realised more fully to-day than for many years. It would appear that the game is suffering to a great extent because of waning interest in its roots for a mad rush after the bloom of representative and international play. When New Zealand had its 1924-25 side every youth who left school thought of sport in terms of goal posts, and referees, a touchline and a scrum. To-day his interest is kindled in how to get round in under 80.

The roots of the game have suffered, but they are still very live and. in proper hands, can be developed. Ratana’s care of the fourth grade team last year was an example of what proper hands can do. In that case the hands were those of “Mick” Hogan. “Bert” Whiting, who, last year, was sole selector to the MetroRugby Union, and also member of the “Big Three,” has taken his defeat for the latter office with sporting spirit and has gone back to the maroons to coach the fifth grade. His action is to be commended.

It is surprising, considering all the Rugby players of the past, that Wanganui should be short of referees this season. Surely there are sufficient among the brigade which played in days gone by who can afford to play

a part with the whistle to-day to enable the youngsters to carry on where they left off. True, the referee is a butt for all. If everything else fails you can always blame the “ref. But that is part of the game of Rugby and there are players of old big enough to get into the thing and help*the rule book along. e

It is disconcern’ng to hear that Marton’s team is facing a lean starting. Probably the taste of bigger football last year had a tendency to be keen for the same thing right from the jump in 1937, instead of having to take a sub-union competition first. That thought prompts a belief that the sooner the scope of the Wanganui Rugby Union, as a major body, is brought down closer to club management the better. The unfortunate thing about the constitution which served Wanganui well in days of semiisolation is that it lifted the major body’s council, and, later, its management committee, into a world far apart from the clubs. Club management is the real basis of Rugby football, and if the body managing the clubs can stimulate club competition the tree top will bloom safely with sound representative talent.

Addressing attention to Taihape one must ask the proverbial question, “Is ■Moke’ Beiliss going to turn out this year?” The answer for 1937 is definitely “No.” “Moke” has at last decided to keep strictly to the touchline. He had a rough spin in hospital last year and is certainly not as young as he was.

Tommy Chase, the colourful Maori back from Taihape, is to be in the picture again this year. He is training hard, reports state. Rangi Chase, his brother, the boy who showed promise as an inside back, is in the running too. That pair will do much to stimulate Taihape Rugby this year.

An acquisition to Wanganui football is W. E. Lucy, late of Southland. His interests have been linked up with Pirates as a coach in the meantime, but, maybe (which is a big word in Rugby when the kick-off whistle sounds), he will be prevailed upon to play.

C. C. Gillfes, the Otago University five-eighth who won his All Black cap last year, has decided not to play Rugby this season. His loss will be a blow to Otago and to New Zealand.

Pat Caughey may not be a starter this season after all. Auckland is very dubious about him turning out. He will not be back in New Zealand from America until July and it is a moot point as to whether he will don the University jersey then.

What a surprising number of the 1935-36 All Blacks have flung their jerseys away—Manchester, Hart, Ball, Hore, Corner, Oliver. —Those are some of the names Which come easily to mind. Now there is talk of Caughey dropping out. Things are certainly not what they were like in the old days. Youth must have its distractions to be modern.

R. Walker, who played for Hunterville last year and made the representative team, was talking of retiring this season, but he is still under the influence of the game. He is reported to be quite fit and right on his game.

Jim Dallas, another of the Hunterville team, suffered an injury to an eye at the start of this season, but he appeared against Wanganui and Old Boys the Saturday before last and went well.

Hunterville has collared a player named Baird from Taihape. Judging by his form early this season he looks to be the goods.

What of the alteration to rules? There have been references in the press recently of the decisions of the International Board making important alterations to the rules of the game. It is said that players now, instead of standing on the mark of a penalty kick, must retire 10 yards behind it. It is also said that a player stooping to pick up the ball cannot now be pushed as he was in the days of old. Enquiries were made of local referees, but none of them had anything but the vague answer to give—*Tve seen it in the Press.” Apparently, there will be no alteration in the rules so far as opening day in Wanganui is concerned, simply because the city referees have no definite advice, one way or the other.