INTER-UNIT MATCHES

Camp News, Volume 1, Issue 24, 24 May 1940, Page 7

INTER-UNIT MATCHES

Championship Won By Wellington Team (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service. CAIRO, April 2. Its succession of victories unbroken at the end of the eighth and final match, the Wellington Battalion's Rugby 'football fifteen has won the New Zealand Division inter-unit champion ship competition and: become the first holder of the cup presented by the Di vis io I Commander. Last week Wellington met and staved off the challenges of its two strongest competitors, the Auckland Battalion and the Machine-Gun Battalion. The former team went close to halting the progress of the Wellington fifteen, losing narrowly by two points.- The other match, played on Saturday, was the decisive one, for the Machine-Gun Battalion had previously suffered only one reverse. Wellington was victorious again, however, winning by 11 points to nil. Wellington’s success was another feather in the cap of the team’s captain, J. L. Griffiths, former All Black, for it was he who led the New Zealand representatives to victory against a Combined Services team at Easter. Last Saturday’s “cup final” was played in abnormal heat on one of the desert grounds in the New Zealand camp area. There was every expectation that the game would be one of the closest of the series, and so it seemed for the first half, which ended without score, In the second half Wellington took advantage of greater possession of the ball, and the backs were sent away on attacking moves which the machine-gunners were unable to check. Tries were scored by Cochrane and R. Arnold in quick succession, and another by Phillips, Griffiths converting. - • The machine-gunners’ team had undergone alterations which robbed it of some of its strength and dash. Earlier in the season its back line had been made up almost entirely of former South Canterbury representatives— Parsons at half-back, Blythe at first five-eighths, Gaffaney at centre, Morrison on the wing, and Rollinson at fullback. On Saturday, however, Parsons and Gaffaney were the only available members of this quintet.

The cup was presented after the match to the Wellington captain. Griffiths. by Mrs. Frey berg, wife of the Divisional Commander, who also presented medals to members of the team.

Results of the sixth and seventh rounds of . the cup series are. as' fol; lows :—

Sixth round: Machine-Gun Battalion 21, Divisional and Brigade lI.Q. 0; Wellington Battalion 9, A.S.C. 3; Auckland Battalion 14, Cavalry and Ambulance 5: Canterbury Battalion 14, Signals and Engineers 3; Field Regiment 0. R.M.T. Company 0.

Seventh round: Machine-Gun Battalion S, Canterbury Battalion 5: Field Regiment 3, Cavalry, and Ambulance 0: Wellington Battalion 5, Auckland Battalion 3: R.M.T. Company 11, Divisional and Brigade H.Q. 3: A.S.C beat Signals and Engineers by default.