BEN DU TOIT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 37, 17 July 1939, Page 3

BEN DU TOIT

GREAT SPRINGBOK FORWARD INVERCARGIXL HIS TURNING POINT One of the forwards the 1940 All Blacks will probably play against in South Africa is Ben, du Toit, who is the present captain of Northern Transvaal. Too little was seen oi him in New Zealand to judge his form, injuries keeping hint out of the play after the matches in Australia, but South African critics rated him the best No. 8 forward they had. A noted New Zealand J. G. McLean, of the New Zealand Observer, who saw the Sprin.gboks in Australia and in all their matches in New Zealand, also rated him very highly indeed. Many Gifts for the Game. So fa-r as his Rugby brilliance Is concerned, there have been a good many debates as. to which of the many qualities that nature has bestowed on him y have provided the chief contriution to his outstandin skill at the very specialists type c j£>lay at which he is the mastei writes J. Sacks in the Rand Daii Mail.

Some c ay it is his exceptional speed that has been responsible. Others may put it down to the fact that he lias been through that famous nur. ser'y of the game, Stellenbosc.h. Others may point to the fact that that wizard, that Merlin of Rugby football, A. ,F. had a lot to do with his most impressionable days at ihat institution. It was Markottcr who, with a wave of h : .s walk, ing stick, shooed down Du Toit from halfback to forward.

But it is by no means far fetches to suggest that the biggest contri bution to his success has been hi mental alertness: his exceptional!' sharp sense of observation; his quick orderly mental grasp of an entir; situation almost in, a single glance. His other qualities have no doub (played their part. He has comman (leered them to serve him on the fool ball field but the co-ordinating ant directing forcc has been his excep. tionally clear-cut power" of observa. tion. I was very impressed by the repeated evidences that he gave of this during the New Zealand tour by the Springboks a couple of seasons ago. Whether lie went to a meeting or on a sightjseeing tour, he could after, wards recount the incidents with n wealth of detail that was the envy o! every journalist. Although he was handicapped by a severe injury to his spine in that gruelling mud battle on the Sydney (cricket) ground, where New South Wales inflicted a heavy defeat on. the Springboks, his talent blossomed out to the full on that tour of 1937. Prior to that—at the Cape and in the Trans vaal—he had been a forward of outstanding promise. The tour converted the promise into an accomplished fact. For most of the tour he was just a spectator; he sat out for twelve sue. cessive matches after the Sydney game. But all the time he was shrewdly taking in every move, work ing tactics out in his own mind. A Case of Paralysis. He did not play in New Zealand until the South Africans reached the South Island. Then he played at Blenheim a little gingerly after his illness; and he came off the field to be told bj r a doctor that he was lucky to have escaped paralysis; and that is he played again that scourge would be his onty reward. But this theory was not a unanimous one among the medicos, and not long afterward.s Du Toit took his courage in his hands and turned out against Southland, then the holders of the Ranfuiiy Shield-. Well, the doctor who had predicted paralysis was right. Only the paralysis was to be found among his opponents, when he got going. He made up for all his football holiday in that one game, electrifying his own team by his sensationalism in the loose, lie acted almost like an extra three. I quarter, beating one, two, three ami even, four 111011 in succession in order to work his wings clear for a velvet path to the goal line. That Southland game, played at Invercargill—which has a notorious reputation for feeding oysters to visiting teams prior to big llugby games —was the milestone in Du Toit's career. He changed in that one match from possibility to fact, from a good, hard player into a positively brilliant (Continued at foct of neyt column)

one. It was there that he attained for the first time that tip top peak that has given him the reputation n pco'less flank forward of the highest clajs.