STING GONE

NZ Truth, Issue 1185, 16 August 1928, Page 14

STING GONE

Interest Lost In Club Games (From "N.Z. Truth's" Palmerston North Rep.) With the absence of Manawatu star players away with the touring Manawhenua team and the additional depletions m the teams brought about by casualties, m- I terest m the resumption of the " competition could .by no stretch of the/ imagination be called keen. CVEN the usually attractive . Kia Toa *-* — Old Boys flutter failed to draw the crowd. " It was. only to be expected that with Crawford, Summers, Parsons, Sti'ange, Heatley and Mullins out of the Kia Toa team and with six juniors, who had participated m the curtain-raiser, m the Old Boys side, the game would not be anything, to write home about. Old Boys gave the appearance of knowing that defeat was inevitable, and though their forwards were able to give them plenty of the ball from both line-out and scrum, the backs were unable to make any oportunities for themselves. Kia Toa owe a lot to McDonald, their captain and wing-forward. Keeping his men up to scratch he was one of the fittest on the field, and a soxirce of continual annoyance to the. Old Boys' backs. He showed a fine turn of speed when he went across under the posts for his two tries. The failure of the Old Boys' backs to do anything with the ball • when they had it is attributable to the lack of cohesion and support, equally as much as to the spoiling tactics adopted, by the Kia Toa men. Wasley, full-back, was sound . as usual m -hiss position, but there were occasions when good work by the Old Boys' forwards necessitated the presence of Griffin to hold, the fort. The latter player also showed much dash on attack. Tireless Half \ Shapleski played soundly at the scrum base, and had to take many . a hard knock from Galpin and ,company. Doherty, Croll and O'Keefe were the hardest working of the Kia Toa forwards. The Old Boys' full-back, Bennett, was not so reliable as he usually is. On several occasions he made unpardonable errors which endangered his line. Waugh, the connecting link between the scrum and five-eighths, despite the fact that he had just come from another hard game, appeared to be tireless m his endeavors to feed his backs. It was no fault of his that the passing chains invariably broke down soon after they had started. Evans acted as captain of the side m Akuira's absence, but beyond showing some ineffective trickiness he was not outstanding. Galpin, m the line -out, and Tremewan m the scrums were the pick of the forwards, while Linklater's speed saved Old Boys' line from being crossed on more than one occasion. The game was the third meeting of the Kia Toa' and Old Boys senior fifteen, and In all three games this season they have been successful. The score of 13-3 m last Saturday's match was a fair indication of the merits of the two teams, though, perhaps, Old Boys were unlucky m not scoring at least one try. . { ... ... Feilding, too, enjoyed their third and most decisive victory of the season, over Athletic, who were called upon to fill their ranks as best they could. Even as it was they were two men short. Neither side appeared to take the game very seriously, Athletic being the worse offenders m this respect, the natural result being that Feilding won 35-9. . What the' game lacked m- quality football was made upMn amusing incidents, ' the spectators being treatedto as amusing a game as has .been seen on Johnston Park.