OLD-TIME FOOTBALL.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1862, 23 September 1913, Page 9

OLD-TIME FOOTBALL.

COADJUTOR ARCHBISHOP O'SHEA.

The consecration of CoadjutorArdibishop O'Shea —appointed by the Pope as the associate at and .successor to Archbishop Redwood as the head of tho Catholiij Church in New Zealandhas caused me to look up my history of Rugby Football in New Zealand (writes the Now Zealand correspondent of t3io Sydney " Referee.")

' St. Patrick's College (Wellington) opened- its doors for tho higher education of New Zealand's Catholio children in 1885, and Thomas O'Shea was one of .its earliest students. In his first year he was in tho first fifteen, and in 1887,' 1888, and 1889 he captained tho team, with such success that in the two last years tho ".St. Pat's" boys won the Junior Championship of the Wellington Rugby Union. Tjie presont high churoh dignitary had a nickname that does not fit him those days, but his fellow-students fondly referred to him as "tho flea" as a compliment, to. his liveliness ; and nimblenoss ■as a ;,}ialf?back.- "He-- - was here, there, and everywhere, and tho way lie .worked tho scrummages proved- that .he had then the powers of organisation that have since distinguished him in hla church work'.

The year 1837 was memorable so far as the contests for the Junior Championship were concerned. Tho Melrose and) Epuni teams played no fewer than four drawn games, the competition being played on the "knock-out" principle—and in desperation the Rugby Union put the teams in the hat again, and Epuni wero drawn, against St. Patrick's College. The day this gamo was played was tho bleakest I can remomber, tho showers of sleet numbing the players to the bone. The College boys felt tho weather most, and they wero beaten.

Among those who played under Thomas O'Shea's captaincy were: Bernard MacMahon, now a s'harebroker in Reefton ; Stan Mahony, curate in Wanganui: Charles Tringham, the wellknown. Wellington solicitor; Father Fay, now in Blenheim; J. O'Brien, afterwards a well-known Linwood and Canterbury representative player; D. Sheedy, a solicitor ' in Western Australia; Mr. Bourke, a well-known and successful woolbrokor; T. Hodgius, a Pahiatua farmer, whoso, son is in the Collego team this year; C. Kennedy, a cripple nowadays through an injury in a sawmill at Titnaru; W. Houldsworth, hotelkeeper at Takaka, Nelson; and J. O'Dwyer, of Blenheim, tho champion sprinter of the college in his schooldays. Among those who.liave passed away ara W. Haydon, Charles Hoiley, Father Malone, J. Roacho and W. Gaffnoy. So you see Now Zealand's Rugby men of other days are keeping their names as fresh in, more: serious life as their contemporaries in Austra-