ALL BLACKS’ MANAGER

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 103, 25 January 1935, Page 10

ALL BLACKS’ MANAGER

Mr. V. R. Meredith Chosen by Rugby Union BALLOT TAKEN LAST NIGHT The appointment of Mr. V. R. .Meredith, of Auckland, as manager of the New Zealand Rugby football team which is to tour Great Britain this year, was announced by the New Zealand Rugby Union last night. A special meet ing of the management committee was held at 7 o’clock, .vhea a full attendance of members was present. The proceedings were taken hi committee, and a statement that Mr. Meredith bad been appointed following a ballot was made subsequently by the chairman, Mr. S. S. Dean. The following were tlie nominees: Mr. T. A. Fletcher (Wellington). Hon J McLeod (Taranaki), Mr. G. A. Maddison (Hawke’s Bay), Mr. V. It. Meredith (Auckland), Mr. J. Prendeville (Wellington). The candidatures of Messrs. Prendevillc and McLeod were conditional upon Mr. Meredith declining nomination. Mr. Dean stated that the appointment of the New Zealand delegates to the Rugby conference in Great Britain would not l>c decided for at least six weeks. Information was being awaited from England on certain points in this connection. Mr. Meredith’s Career. Mr. Meredith, senior partner ot tlie firm of Meredith, Hubble and Meredith, and Crown solicitor -n Auckland, was born in Whangarei. He was educated nt the Onehunga primary school and the Auckland Grammar School at both -'f which he won scholarships. He commenced legal practice in Wellington in partnership witli Mr. R. M. Watson, formerly Chief Justice of Samoa, and later a magistrate Subsequently Mr. Meredith was Crown solicitor in Wellington for three years before coming to Auckland, where be was appointed Crown solicitor in 1921. He also represented the New Zealand Government before the Royal Conunisison at Samoa in 1927. As a footballer Mr. Meredith played half-back for the Wellington representative team. After settling in Auckland he became selector to the Auckland Rugby Union, and produced teams which held an excellent record over a long period of years. He then retired from the position, but last season was persuaded once more to take an active interest in the game. He was appointed a New Zealand selector and again selected and coached the Auckland representative fifteen, which lifted the Ranfurly Shield from Hawke’s Bay at Napier on September 8 last. Reputation as Crown prosecutor. Mr. Meredith in his professional capacity as Crown prosecutor tit Auckland has made a reputation in his handling of numerous Supreme Court criminal case;-, several of which have been murder trials. His masterly conduct of the case for the Crown in the Bayly trial added much to his successful career at the Bar and brought him into prominence throughout this country and beyond He is a man who has never departed from scrupulous fairness toward an accused, and his quiet and dignified manner in court and his patient ways with difficult witnesses hare won him a fair name in the law.

He is an accomplished speaker in public, is unfailingly courteous and is unhurried in demeanour. He is a man who, when he gets on his feet to make a s-peecli, invariably line something worth-while to say, airy platitudes being outside his mental occupations. When he stands up to acknowledge the toast of New Zealand at the banquets which the All Blacks will be given overseas he can be depended up on to say something worth listening to and to represent the country with dignity and credit.