BAY OF PLENTY AND THAMES VALLEY DRAW ON MUDDY FIELD

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 73, 26 July 1948, Page 5

BAY OF PLENTY AND THAMES VALLEY DRAW ON MUDDY FIELD

(Special to Beacon) Waihi, July 25. Under atrocious conditions Bay of Plenty Rugby representatives, met Thames Valley at Waihi on Saturday, the result being a draw 6—6. Rain fell practically throughout the game, and the ground was a sea of mud. In the latter stages, it was extremely difficlt to distinguish the players. North Island selector, Tom Pearse was present at the game in search of talent. Three Bay of Plenty players impressed him, he said—and McGougan, of Whakatane, and McGuigan of Rotorua. Teams were:— Bay of Plenty Welch Denize Franke McGougan Kahotea Moore Raureti / McGuigan Roigaard, McLaughlin, Jacobs, Fitzgerald Hata, Moncur, Grey. Thames Valley O’Neil Kurtovich Mitchell O’Shea Hayward McMillan Furey Samson Moses, Osborne, Conhead, Smith Ollington, Spiers, Dufiin Both sets of backs attempted to throw the ball about, but it was so slippery that many knock-ons resulted. Later, both teams exploited kick-through tactics, and bustling forward rushes. The two fullbacks, Welch and O’Neil, gave splendid displays of handling and kicking with Welch definitely taking the honours of the day. His immaculate handling and long, raking kicks to the sideline with either foot were probably the most outstanding feature' of the match. In the Bay forwards, McGuigan showed up well, particularly in the second half. Grey, Roigaard and McLaughlin also worked very hard. Jacobs is a very good man in the line-outs, but shows a tendency to take the ball with one hand, often losing it. McGuigan, who is about 6ft 4in tall, would make a fine forward if he were a little less gentle in his play. Raureti, at half, saved the Bay on countless occasions with his untiring backing-up. He was the only inside back in the Bay team to go down on the ball. .'The Bay fiveeighths, Moore and Kahotea, showed a distressing reluctance to stop forwards, and also allowed their opposing backs to run too far thus giving Thames Valley a good overlap on many occasions. From one of these Valley scored a very fine try and the backs handling the greasy ball to send Kurtovitch over in the corner.

McGougan, the Whakatane winger, played another very good game. On attack he showed great determination, From his boot came all the Bay’s points. The first kick was a simple one right in front. Later, he kicked a beauty from the sideline and "about 35 yards out. With such a heavy, wet ball this was a really outstanding effort. In the Thames team, all the forwards played very hard football with the ex-Aucklander, Smith, playing an excellent game. In the backs McMillan, Furey and O’Neil were perhaps the best. Scorers:— Bay. of Plenty (6 points): McGougan, two penalties. Thames Valley (6 points): Samson and Kurtovich, a try each. Mr F. Young,, Te Aroha, was the referee.