KEEN AS MUSTARD

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 15, 8 April 1927, Page 12

KEEN AS MUSTARD

MORMONS AND RUGBY COLLEGE NEAR HASTINGS THAT “PAEWAI” MESSAGE At Bridge Pah, a Maori settlement three miles from Hastings, stands a massive stone building which has direc association with a recent news item It was stated in Wellington that tiations for a match between a *** . Zealand team and the Agrieultura College of Utah, U.S.A.. had been instituted, and it was doubtless from tn aforesaid massive stone building tna these proposals emanated. The structure at Bridge Pah is tn Mormon Agricultural College, virtual the headquarters of the Mormon .se : in New’ Zealand, and a great school. It has produced such sta as G. Nepia, C. Paewai, A. Falwasser. and W. Shortlands, the sturdy hall oi the Maori team which recently * turned from abroad. ... Niki Paewai, a brother of the ai Black, is the Paewai referred to in • message from Wellington, which sta that he is at present a student at » Lake City, the Mormon headquarter... ORGANISED “ROOTING” In coaching methods, and in policy of organised “barracking' at matches, the school follows typi « • American lines. Its instructors ** all Americans, genial young men peer through horn-rimmed Susses, are unbelievably keen on this , game they have discovered. Organ* choruses to encourage the te^ r ”^ , tnrS -action are sometimes led by eonauc clad in flowing robes of blue and w _ Prancing along the front of a Has j grandstand, these phenomena can ij» a high pitch of enthusiasm among followers, and a marked degree amusement among other spectato • After a term at *the M.A.C. Mormon masters generally ret^ r th -; r Utah, and it is easy to understand anxiety to arrange a match wU® - - e Zealanders, who are, they consider, - best footballers in the world. As P»> in America Rugby football is din from the orthodox game, but poss • the enthusiastic Mormons l ave eftec a local adjustment of their rules, any rate, they are wonderfully k about the game.