WINTER GAMES COMMENCE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 22, 30 April 1947, Page 4

WINTER GAMES COMMENCE

THE official curtain on the stage of winter athletics will be rung up on Saturday next, when the first competitional games under the Whakatane Rugby Union will take place. Prospects this year are unusually good, both in the Rangitaiki and in the home Union, and there appears to be a greater interest among the younger > players than hitherto. A w r elcome is extended the P.W.D. team which promises to be well up on points before the season is very old. An interesting point is the growing affinity between this centre and Galatea, where a somewhat isolated Sub-Union is carying on under considerable difficulties. The possibilities of inter-union play and friendly visiting matches in this direction furnish a field of prospects which might be explored to the mutual benefit of all. Hockey, which came well into its own last year appears to be making a powerful advent again. Teams have affiliated from all parts of the district, and the game is especially popular in the Maori settlements. The absence of playing facilities imposes a severe handicap upon the hockey code, and just so long as it is forced to promote its matches on Sundays it cannot hope for those substantial gates which are the compensating feature of Rugby football. Winter games in Whakatane appear on the whole to be making a promising start which we hope will be productive of science and teamwork in the later rep. fixtures.