HONOURS WELL SPREAD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 139, 14 June 1937, Page 4

HONOURS WELL SPREAD

RUGBY IN WANGANUI BULLS DEFEATS WAVERLEY TECHNICAL OLD BOYS DRAW WITH HUNTERVILLE OLD BOYS BEATEN BY KAIERAU MARIST AND HALCOMBE DRAW (By “Cross-bar”) Strange grounds and new vigour in the Wanganui senior Rugby competitions on Saturday, resulted in honours being well spread, two matches out of five being drawn. Staging a wonderful second spell, Bulls, after being down 15 points at half-time, piled on 24 points and defeated Waverley in the match featured at headquarters. Wanganui and Old Boys were not good enough for Kaierau in the early game on Spriggens Park and went under by 8 to 17. The other A grade match was played at Hunterville, where the heavy going and the “up-hill” and “down-hill” nature of the ground robbed Technical Old Boys of much of their Spriggens Park finish. Al! they were able to do was draw with Hunterville, 8-all. Pirates were defeated by Marton Old Boys in the B grade by 19 to 6, the match being played on the Racecourse. At Halcombe, Marist and Halcombe drew in the other B grade match, three all.

The outstanding feature of the day was the reversal of form in the second spell of the match between Bulls and Waverley. At half-time Waverley had the score-board reading in its favour by 15 to nil and patrons were beginning to wonder where it was that Bulls hart won Its reputation of being a fairly strong team. The writer was accosted and asked to apologise for suggesting such a thing in these columns. Waverley had had it all over the visitors in the first spell end some on the touchline who had come specially to see a team they had played for in the old days make a reappearance in Wanganui, were loth to own allegiance to the past. But after half-time, on a dead calm day, with conditions favouring neither side, form was completely reversed and Bulls never let Waverley look dangerous. Waves of black players swept “Sir Walter Scott’s” team off their feel and ptted on 24 points. What a finish! The crowd lined the field and cheered and cheered again. One enthusiastic Bulls supporter, lungs inflated to the full, tramped the sentry beat of an old Pirates supporter in thw heyday of the blacks. He yelled at the Bulls team all through the second spell. Maybe it was his voice Bulls had been listening for all through the first session, for the team never looked back and it won again to smiling faces in the stand allegiance which was sadly shattered in the first spell. Old has-beens who had been afraid to do it at half-time, were heard to declare of Bulls: “Played for them in the old days. They always were a great team!” What a finish. What a clean-up of pessimists. Wanganui and Old Boys and Kaierau also played a lively game, which would have provided quite a spectacle at three o’clock, but the reds were not rugged or determined enough to withstand the maroons’ typical play which, on two occasions at least, was aided by the luck of the bounce.