SCHOOLBOYS AND RUGBY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 100, 30 April 1938, Page 8

SCHOOLBOYS AND RUGBY

NURSERY SCHEME FOR WANGANUI OPENING NEXT SATURDAY

The Wanganui Rugby Union is likely to become the most active union in the Dominion in regard to school football. Not only will it still retain the very effective Primary Schools’ Union, which conducts competitions through the week, but a scheme has been formulated whereby the Junior Management Board will promote Saturday morning matches for boys attending school, and any who have left school but have not made the weight for the various grades. Mr. J. C. Ward, a member of the Metropolitan Union’s Management Committee, and Mr. W. J. Brown, a member of the Pirates Club, ha\e been closely associated with the promulgation of the new scheme. Mr. Brown mentioned the matter of school football at the union’s annual meeting and what has taken place since is a natural outcome of a desire expressed by club delegates to cater for the boys.

"Tbe Primary Schools' Rugby Union in Wanganui has done splendid work, but its activities do not extend to the national weekly holiday -Saturday, stated the promoters in an interview with the "Chronicle.” We readily understand that some teachers look to a Saturday to be free to pursue their own sporting desires, and it is a matter for the Rugby Union itself to take up the question of absorbing the many boys available on Saturday mornings. "We, intend to invite every boy in Wanganui who wishes to learn Rugby, play it and master it, to attend at Sprigpens Park next Saturday morning. There will be no definition of schools. Tile boys will bo arranged in teams and will play according to their

placings.” Boys who wish to participate must bring their own gear. Not only will the actual playing of the game in teams be fostered, but goal kicking and knowledge of the rules will be aspects of coaching not lost sight of. “The nursery of New Zealand Rugby

lies in the schools,” the promoters of this scheme point out. “It is there that boys are given the fundamental instruction which helps them later on. That instruction can be made invaluable when they rise through th® grades. We hope we will have a generous measure of support from not only the boys, but their parents and the schools themselves.”