SPRINGBOKS’ SKIPPER

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 458, 16 June 1937, Page 2

SPRINGBOKS’ SKIPPER

SIXTY MILES ON HORSEBACK FOR GAME “POCKET MONEY TO SPEND IN N.Z.” When 'the 1937 Springboks troop down the ship’s gangway at Auckland thy will land on New Zealand soil with a captain descended from French Huguenots, with the blue eyes and fair hair of an Anglo-Saxon, a man of quiet tact and iron resolution with a character fashioned from a life spent on the land, and a Rugby player who epitomis.es all the rugged- dauntless qualities of the great Springbok forwards of the past.

Philip Jacobus Nel, says a Durban (S. Africa) writer, has two passions —farming and football. Throughout his thirty-four years, the 4heme of his life has beer. provided by the plough and the scrum. Solitude threatened to cut short his Rugby- career The remarkable lengths to which he w-nt to keep playing the game, when circumstances were ell against him, make a graphic story. Capped for Natal at it he age of seventeen, when he was still at school, he spent eight years living alone on a farm among the thousand hills in the hoart of Natal. To play for the village club he rode sixty miles on horseback each Saturday. If -the team happened to be playing an away match in the nearest town, Moritzburg, he rose at 4.30 in the morning, rode his thirty miles on a horse and another 45 by car —a tote I of 150 miles for ninety minutes on the playing field. To-day he is a progressive farmer way up in the mountains. He has a plantation of 150 acres of /the wattle trees that came originally from Australia, and his great hobby is rearing sheep. They pasture on paspalum grass from New Zealand. I found him out in Hhe lands with an ox team and a gang of Zulus. He was crushing maize to feed his stock while he is buffeting his 215 pounds through the ranks of Wallaby forwards.’ The natives chanted songs as they hacked down the tell mealie stalks. A left-handed piccanin swung a scythe with a crashing stroke, like Leyland hooking a ball to square-ieg.

Banks on His Forwards. “The forwards,’’ he said, ‘‘are -the strong fetture of the team. They will hold their own, I believe, against anything they mee»t. I think they will mould themselves iulto the best pack South Africa has ever had, but they are not that you We have no brilliant g:ars? among the backs like we had in Eugia.iiJ in Bennie Osler, Van Niekerk and Van der Westhuizen—all fellows with great reputations. But because we have no great stars among them, the acks should develop into a finer combination and have a better understanding -than in the past. “I’d like to make it clear, both here <and in Australia and New Zealand,” he added, “ithat my attitudia about the tour is that we are all anxious to learn. We are not going over there to teach them anything. “I thought 1 knew <all about Rugby at twenty, but I’ve been learning something ever since.” Beyond the lawns and gardens that surround Nel’s homestead a small herd ©f beefy cdt.tle were grazing. “That’s to be my pocket-money in j New Zealand,” he announced; “I’m 1 fattening them up for t.he market.” | There is a dis?incft farming flav- . our about the Springbok team. FerI die Pfergh, the giant loose forward, is i a Government expert in animal hus- ; trndii’y, “Ebbo” Bastard, Nel’s hal fr’section-, is the son of a wealthy shesp ; farmer, and Ben du Toit is a son of the soil. They hope to return home not only richer in Rugby lore, but wiser in Ithe academics of agriculture.

Will Pack 3-4-1. Nel has played no fewer then sixtyfive times for Natal. “We’ll pack 3-4-1,” he says. “I’m satisfied that it is the besit scrum for modern Rugby. I see that many authorities, like Mark Nicholls, have -the same opinion.” He believes that the greatest influences in South African Rugby in his time were the outcome of -the 1928 visit of the All Blacks, and It he last tour of the Wallabies. The New Zealanders -taught us the vialue of intense backing up by fhe forwards, and the Wallabies provided an education through their spectacular, open style of game. Nel is married, with -two daughters, Louise, aged l seven, and Jeanne, aged two. He plays cricket. “I feel more nervous going out to bat in our village game than I do in a Rugby test match,” he 'told me. He bas‘ the farmer’s love of riding, shooting and fishing. His widespread popularity in the district was demonstrated when it was learned that he was going on tour. A host of neighbouring farmers have offered to work his farm while he is abroad. Mrs Nel wants to see the Springboks play in Australia and New Zealand. Unofficially she saw most of the maltches in England on the last tour. Wives are barred from H|ie team, but somehow I think Mrs Nel may one day turn up in Sydney or Auckland.

I left the Springbok oarl'ain shouting oiit instructions to his labourers in Zulu, hurrying to put his farm in order before leaving on the mosTL glamorous tour in the last decade of South African sport.