RUGBY IN EGYPT

Camp News (Northern Command), Volume 1, Issue 21, 20 September 1940, Page 6

RUGBY IN EGYPT

Successful New Zealand Army Team The success of the New Zealand Army Rugby team, chosen from members of the First Echelon of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, in | Egypt, is recalled by the photograph j appearing today of the side. Captained by the-well-known Poneke, Wellington and All Black footballer, J. L. Griffiths, I the New Zealand Army team beat a I combined British Army and Royal Air , Force team 20-0 at Cairo on March 25. The New Zealand team was chosen I about the time that inter-unit Rugby , matches were in progress in Egypt. | The inter-unit competition was won by I the team representing the Wellington Regiment, also captained by Griffiths, which beat the Welsh Regiment team 11-9 in the final at Cairo early in May. The New Zealand Army team which defeated the British side on March 27 contains, in addition to Griffiths, two other All Blacks in T. C. Morrison, the brilliant South Canterbury wing-three-quarters, and J. G. Wynyard, the tall Waikato side-row forward. In addition, Major J. T. Burrows, who was a member of The selection committee, toured South Africa with the All Blacks in . 1928 as a front-row forward. . The chairman of the selection committee, Lieutenant-Colonel T. J. King, is. well known as a Rugby administrator in this country. For many years he was a member of the management committee of ,the Wellington Rugby Union, and in 1939 he became a member of the executive of the New Zealand Rugby Union. . - Apart from the three All Blacks in i the team', there were 10 provincial representatives in the sideßollinson, full-back, from South Canterbury ; Knowles, wing-threequarters. Petone and Wellington; R. Arnold, centrethreequarters, Taranaki; L. Arnold, five-eighths, Taranaki; D. J. Parsons, half-back, South Canterbury ; G. Wales, forward, Athletic and Wellington; J. Coull (vice-captain), forward, Taranaki and 1939 All Black trial player; ' R. K. Anderson, forward, Auckland ; G. R. Stow, front-row forward, Canterbury ; and A. Mcßeath, hooker, * from Auckland. Thompson and Kidd, the remaining forwards, are from South Auckland.