Globe-Trotters

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 167, 5 October 1927, Page 11

Globe-Trotters

ALL BLACK TOURISTS Rugby Season Near Its Close RUGBY this season is running to the end of its course in a blaze of glory. Interest had been maintained to the end by the All Black trials, and even during the off-season the composition of the team will continue to excite discussion. By to-night, the composition of the whole team will probably be known. Already thirteen certainties are ready to pack their bags.

AUCKLAND is to have another representative match before the curtain, falls on the 1927 season, if the tentative arrangements are finalised at to-night’s meeting of the Rugby Union. The team opposing the hitherto unbeaten Auckland side will be Waikato, which has had one of the best seasons in its history, has beaten Wairarapa and Manawhenua, both shield-holders, and has so far managed to escape defeat. It is possible that one or two other matches, inter-club games, will be played before jerseys and kindred accessories are finally stowed away for the summer. * * Waratahs’ Winning Way New South Wales Rugby men will undoubtedly be delighted with the opening results of the Waratahs’ tour. The Cornstalks have beaten heavily every side they have met to date, and the brilliance of their backs has suggested to English critics the dire possibility that another invincible team has arrived. Lawton has played a handsome part in the high scores put on by the tourists, who put on 74 points against 11 in their first three matches, a record a good deal more impressive than the 1924 All Blacks had managed to accumulat eat the corresponding stage of their tour. Chequered Career “Tommy” Lawton, the brilliant inside back with the Waratahs, has had a singularly chequered Rugby career. He learned his football in Brisbane, where the Union game was not played, so it was the League code that taught him the game. Winning a Rhodes scholarship when a student at Brisbane University, Lawton went to the fore in English Rugby, and was soon wearing the dark blue jersey of Oxford. Then came bolt from the blue. He was summarily and most unjustly disqualified, on the score of former professionalism, by the Engish Rugby Union. Reinstatement followed, but the damage had been done, for the Queenslander would have otherwise been capped for England. Subsequently he came to New Zealand, and before returning to Australia played for the Albion Club, in Christchurch. New All Black Dave Lindsay, the surprise among the 13 certainties chosen last Saturday evening, bears a remarkable resemb-

lance in both face and physique to A. Knight, the Auckland forward. Lindsay, a Timaru High School boy, is now a dental student at Otago University, and played for the New Zealand universities' team in New South Wales earlier this season. Touring with the Otago team, he visited Auckland, and the opening he made when he sent a pass infield and gave a try to Peterson was as pretty as anything seen on the Park this season. The latest All Black has the weight and proportions of a forward, and the speed and safe hands of a back. The inability to think quickly is a disability said to mar his Rugby, but he gave no evidence of that sluggishness in the match played here. Hawke’s Bay Worried Hawke’s Bay is worried because drastic readjustments of the railway workshops arrangements threatens to deprive Napier of several of its footballers, among them being W. Huxtable, who played on the wing in representative games this season. Others who have been given notice that they wil* be required to move within 12 months are McLea and Russel, two well-known club players. Napier does not mind the removal of the railway workshops—at least that is only a minor blow—but the departure of good footballers is a very much more serious consideration.

Other centres, however, nave suffered similarly, and what they lose is usually Petone’s grain. Elvy Out of the Picture W. Elvy, who rose to prominence with meteoric rapidity, and won All Black colours last year, seems to have dropped right out of the picture as far as next year’s All Black team is concerned, and one cannot help wondering if he has not been “blacklisted” because of his movements during the season. It will be remembered that he shifted from Christchurch to Petone, then to Pahiatua, and back to retone, and tnat an inquiry into his movements was demanded. Wellington had no hesitation in selecting him for representative engagements, and it was only an injury that prevented his coming North. When the trial teams were chosen, however, he was quietly dropped out of the picture. Heazlewood Moves Heazlewood, the Otago fullback, has been transferred from the Hillside workshops, Dunedin, under the same scheme of reorganisation that is creating; heartburnings in Napier, and he was recently the guest of honour at a function given by a large number of members of the Alhambra Club, when he left Dunedin. At the time of writing he still has a chance of becoming one of the fullbacks for the All Blacks. He has played very consistently throughout the season. J. Steel, another railway employee, was shifted from his native West Coast to Christchurch during the season, and later it was hinted that he, too, would be transferred to Petone. The move has not yet materialised. Steel could not play in last Saturday’s trial, and is reported to have flatly refused to play to-day. In 1924 he was one of the certainties. The Bubble Reputation Footballers are often men of “bubble reputation.” "What has become of D. R. L. Stephenson, the Otago Varsity player who was chosen amid a flourish of trumpets to play for New Zealand in New South Wales last season? lie was not a success, partly through Injuries, and partly through poor kicking, though his courage as a determined tackier was unimpeachable, and he had remarkably safe hands. This season Otago itself found another fullback in Heazlewood, and Stephenson was not offering for the trial matches. T. Corkill, the Hawke’s Bay fiveeighth, who gave such an excellent display In Auckland, has lost the form of a season or two back, when he was sent to Australia with an experimental All Black team, very few of whom lived up to their early promise. Playmates Snodgrass and Grenside, who opposed one another in the inter-island match, are old acquaintances. Snodgrass was formerly in a bank in Hastings, and he and Grenside played together. •Snod” was then an inside back, and later, when he moved to Timaru, he graduated to the forwards, where he was reckoned a champion. Later he returned to his native Nelson, and was in-

txoduced to the wing-threequar ter position, with such success that in 1923 he went from the South Island

team to the All Blacks. A hardrunning, honest type of threequarter, Snodgrass was evidently anything but a failure on Saturday, and some aver that he was better than Grenside.

The Auckland Backs Until the All Black team is finally chosen, judgment on the play of the Auckland backs last Saturday must be suspended. In the face of every opinion, if is idle to suggest that they played up to form, but their failure to do so is inexplicable. Berridge made a few fine efforts early in the proceedings, but he marred them with bad passes to Sheen, and frequently ran his centre hopelessly out of

position by stopping in his tracks before sending on the passes. Under the circumstances, Sheen is unfortunate to be dropped to-day, unless the correct inference is that the selectors are satisfied with his soundness. Had he been played with Lucas outside him, the Wellington crowd would have been shown real fireworks. Since the above was penned the writer has learned that Sheen was asked to play to-day, but could not do so, owing to injured knees. Rugby Globe-trotters Be a footballer, and see the world. It is good advice to a young man who has the physical qualifications. Take the Brownlie brothers Maurice Brownlie, has been twice to New South Wales, to England, Ireland, France, and Canada with football teams. Next year he will complete his touring—he has seen every part of New Zealand through the same medium, and saw Egypt as a soldier—by the trip to South Africa. He should then retire and write a book. The men who have been on both the 1924 and 1928 tours will have remarkable travels to look back upon when they are older. But All Black teams have had to be assembled practically every year since the war, tor matches either at home or abroad, and some of the leading players will be forgiven if they sometimes confess that it is all rather a strain.