Wairarapa Sticks To The Old Guard

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1033, 25 July 1930, Page 7

Wairarapa Sticks To The Old Guard

FULLER’S FINE FOOTBALL AUCKLAND'S WIN POPULAR Special to THE SCS MASTERTOX. Thursday. Club football in the Wairarapa is like the spent tide of Tennyson's that “moving, seems asleep.* 5 No challenge has been entered to date for the Ranfurly Shield, but the defeat of Manawhenua by 29 points to 3 last Saturday has once again raised a vision splendid. Excessive optimism may not be good business, but it is an excellent antidote to pessimism arising from low spirits and loss of faith in your stars. Quentin Donald sticks religiously to the Old Guard, but the All Blacks Irvine, Mil! and Reside, could not make the trip to Palmerston, and three reserves acquitted themselves well. The day was exceedingly wet and rough so that easy kicks at goal were fruitless until Fuller had an inspiration and scraped the mud from the ball with a sideline flag-stick, and then managed to pilot three kicks across the bar.

I. D. Hart, who replaced Mill, showed wonderful control of the greasy ball. He can give the former star halfback at least two stone, and was not afraid to use his strength. Several times In his own twenty-five, unable to line with the heavy ball, he dived right among the opposing forwards, and the giant Harvey and the heavy pack closed in behind him and gained many yards to safety. Short of a clever five-eighth. there has been talk of playing the nimble side-stepping Mill behind Hart, and it is understood that Mill will play at first five-eighth for Old Boys for the next few weeks. F. Fuller came out of hia shell and was acclaimed the best back on the field. He has persistently refrained from using the side-step in representative games, in spite of much urging from the crowd that watches his club games. At Palmerston, finding the forwards slow, he took liberties thnt must have exasperated them. Tw ice he cut through almost the whole opposition, and then took to running from his wing to midfield. sidestepping the forwards and still gairing ground, for he has a great turn of speed; and then handing on to Stringfellow to complete. Fuller is still inferior to Hart, the Canterbury flier, or Rum, the Hawke’s Bay crack, but with careful coaching should be come an All Black in a year or two. With new talent on the horizon, it is possible a challenge may yet be written out for the Ranfurly Shield, but before the gauntlet is thrown down to Southland there will be yet more careful prospecting. In the meantime it is felt that even if we wrested the bauble from Invercargill, it would not be by a clean-cut victory, in the certainty of which we met defeat, la-t year. Of course, outsiders sugge-t that it is because we have lost Cooke and Cundy.

Some years back an aviator undertook the*first flight from Auckland to Wellington, and because of the hea> \ bush inland, followed the Main Trunk railway southward in daylight. Th* “pub loafers” at one small town or the route gathered an hour or two beforehand. and kept careful vigil in case the daring one should crash in their area. Finally, Captain Scotland came in sight, and as he passed overhead an Irishman remarked: “Yes. and I should not care to be up there with that thing.” to be swiftly answered by another voice with tinbrogue. “Sure, and I shouldn't care to be up there without it!” If no one else can wrest the shield from Southland. Wairarapa ,will ba\ e to make the trip without its Captain Cooke. Alternatives are like horses: the winner is difficult to pick. A certain section urges that Wellington have “first pop.” and if the shield comes North we can battle for it on Athletic Park. Auckland’s win against the British team was most popular here. In the three seasons in which Wairarapa was in shield football, the strongest and ablest challengers came from the Queen City, lack of a good place kick alone preventing their triumph last year. A Southern trip by Auckland will mean some royal battles with the major unions.