RUGBY LEAGUE TOUR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20103, 24 November 1939, Page 3

RUGBY LEAGUE TOUR

DISPLAY IN BRITAIN HIGH PRAISE FOR HEMI Th English Rugby League may have the opportunity of welcoming Hemi and a number of others of the New Zealand Rugby League team back again, says the Leeds Sports Post. Many of them are young enough to return. Outstanding, because of the work thrown on _ him, continues the paper was Hemi, the fullback, the man about whom Nepia, no bad judge of a fullback, has said so many nice things. Hemi was required to play a certain type of game at St. Helens in the tourists’ first game, and he was asked to duplicate that game against Dewsbury at Crown Flatt.

When the New Zealanders turned out at St. Helens, they had been off the boat only three or four days, and were nothing like as fit as they would have been under ordinary' circumstances. With the abandonment of the remaining matches, they were not in strict training and were far from concert pitch when they turned out at Dewsbury.

Hemi’s particular job was to care fbr all the men in the front row of him as best as lie could. He got through the task in a remarkably competent fashion, being aided, of course, bv the length of his kicking, the cleanness of his catching and the ease with whch he took the right position. He kicked an amazingly long .ball—there wiere times when the ground did not seem to be big enough for -him, as was the case with Charlie Pollard when he was at Wakefield Trinity, but Hemi showed more than once that he could run to make play for the men in front of him. He caused many to think he was a player of great promise.