“GIVE IT TO DUFTY!”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 April 1939, Page 11

“GIVE IT TO DUFTY!”

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The recent correspondence concerning a phase of Rugby football its rough play element—that is not only bringing but has already brought Wairarapa Rugby exponents of the national pastime into sad repute, and should do an incalculable amount of good, if taken to heart by the younger section players upon whom depends, more than any, the future attendances of the general public, year by year, to see men play the ball, and not the man. As an old time “Rugby rough," I can sympathise with the young bloods who go out in search of “stoush at winter weekends, more especially on foreign fields of play; but, so admirably controlled as the game is today by.comparison with time past, most cause for retaliation tactics is swept away. The best game of Rugby I ever took part in, as a junior team player, was the day we went to Greytown and defeated our opponents by 36 points to nil.

As skipper of the team, I knew Greytown had a surprise for us up its sleeve when I detected several visiting Te Aute College players lined-up against us, not to mention Tom Hawke, the “lightning kick of Wairarapa” (a senior Rugby rep as well). Our team was considered the pick of the ordinary every day “rough and tough” element of Masterton at that time, so we decided to live up to our reputation by playing the man and not the ball from beginning to end of' the game. Being an exceptionally wet and slippery field on which we played this match, our tactics of earthing each and every opponent getting in our way were glorious to behold, from a spectacular point of view. The first victim we sorted out was Tom, and this friendly foe of ours (one of Wairarapa’s most popular players at that) was carried away on a shutter (as the saying goes) in the first ten minutes of the game. His foot poised in mid-air to register a kicked field goal, from about half-way, our toughest of tough forwards head-butted Tom in the solar plexus and laid him out in the mud. Then came the turn of the rung-in Te Aute boys. Our tallest wing forward grabbed each of these (as opportunity presented itself with reasonable cause of tackle movements to prevent a general riot setting in) and twisted up elbows, and knee-prod-ded stomachs, were the order of the day. These, also, early 'in the game, were carted away.

Only for a whispered warning by the proprietor of the Greytown paper —an erstwhile Mastertonian—that we had better not stay in Greytown after the match at Percy Roger’s Hotel (another old Mastertonian) this letter perhaps had not been written today—as half the town had just tumbled to the fact that.it was not our Rugby prowess (no match for our opponents’ sly selection of outside players on this occasion), but our sheer callous and brutal ferocity that had secured a victory over the Greytown team, so we had tea at Carterton instead and (our story of victory being greatly enlarged en route) we made the welkin ring as the old drag (Billy Neill’s) came through the streets of our old home town! At the close of the season however (when in sight of victory for the cup) it took a specially imported Greytown referee to handle the game—and his methods of fair play, we lost the match, and the cup as well. Those days are past and gone, for senior and junior Rugby players alike; and I, for one, hope never more to see repeated, in these times, exhibitions of like kind (or the Battle of Solway) in the Wairarapa, or elsewhere. I am, etc, “BALD AND BASHFUL.” Masterton, April 15.