Personalities In N.Z. Sport

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 761, 6 September 1929, Page 6

Personalities In N.Z. Sport

Led Southland To Its Ranfurly Shield Victory

The player who took possession of J the Hanfurly Shield at Carterton last week-end on behalf of the victorious Southland team is one who well deserved the honour of leading a successful quest for the Dominion’s premier! Rugby trophy. For something: like 10 or 12 years-, I J. R. (“Wampy”) Bell has represented, Southland. And not Southland alone. He was an All Black in 1923, and vicecaptain of the Maori team which toured i England and France in 1926. He has two remarkable claims to Rugby fame. He Had played in every position on the field in representative football with the exception of lock and fullback. Over a 20yd dash, he was at his best probably the fastest footballer who has played in New Zealand since the war. As a youngster still in his teens, In-j started to make a name for himself > just after the war as a member of the ' .Star Club in Invercargill. He got his j rep. cap as half, but it was soon real- : ised in the South that he was too versatile and too dangerous a scoring man to be tied down behind the scrum. After filling various positions in representative football from front row to centre, always with success, this versatile player found his true position with Parata’s Maori team of 1923. As a five-eighth, he played magnificent iootball in Sydney, and his thunderous

clashes fur the line are still remembered there. On .his return to New Zealand, he left .a vivid impression in several New Zealand towns of his wonderful scoring ability, and he was selected to play for New Zealand against the New South Welshmen at Christchurch in that year. Ho was one of the unlucky ones who missed the All Black tour in 1924. Right through the trials, he played outside a player, who had been tentatively fixed on as the likely captain of the team. Although palpably out of form, this man was persisted with liuiit u i> to the finish, and Bell’s own piay suffered so much by his partner’s lock of form that he, too, was “among the missing” when the names for England were announced. lie had some consolation a couple of years later when he was selected as second in command to Walter Barclay in the leadership of the New Zealand Maori team which created such a splendid impression in England and France. Ten years is a long span in a footballer’s playing career. For that time and more, Bell has kept his place in inter-provincial football. A fine fellow to meet both on and off the field, iie has many friends scattered throughout the length and breadth of the Dominion who will heartily congratulate him on the culminating success to a long and meritorious football career.