KeithQuinnRugby
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21 April 2015
Until someone can enlighten me as to who authored the excellent poetic effort attached here I will publish it anonymously but with thanks. My friend Alan Trotter of Tauranga, New Zealand has sent it to me. He says it was 'sourced' to him from the United States - but who can be sure? Read more »
22 April 2015
Here's an obituary about an old Irish star forward who will be much missed. I met Jimmy McCarthy a number of times. Not only was he a lovely, friendly bloke but the Irish players of modern times loved him too. He was seemingly always close to the national team. This report on his death I reprint from the Irish Rugby Football Union's official website; Read more »
22 April 2015
I've been lucky enough to go to the Japan Sevens for the last few years. Its always a fun event to be at, and not always held in the finest of weather conditions. Now we hear that this year's event will be the last in Tokyo. From next year Singapore will follow after the Hong Kong tournament. So in future we'll miss seeing sights like the one here - which shows all the local staff''s shoes outside the Japanese TV production and commentary boxes at Chichibu Stadium. Read more »
6 May 2015
G'day there! Yes, keithquinnrugby.com has been quiet for a few weeks. That's because I am currently out of New Zealand on a private holiday. Yes a holiday! I hope you have noticed my absence! But now here on this website and in the days and weeks to come I'll bring you photographs of some of the incredible sights my wife Anne and I have seen these last few weeks. We are visiting six countries in Europe and North America. The picture you see here is from a wonderful art work which is now available for Scottish people and overseas tourists to enjoy. Read more »
6 May 2015
One of the key reasons for my tour to Europe and North America this year was to visit and pay homage to World War I battlefields and to the rugbymen who died there. We did that for sure, but not before meeting our guide and having lunch at a very appropriate place for New Zealand war watchers in Belgium. Read more »
6 May 2015
I consider it a very good fortune from my life to have visited the gravesite of the first All Black captain Dave Gallaher a number of times. I first went in 1991 with some All Blacks of the second Rugby World Cup team. But that day one of the team behaved very badly by goose-stepping between the rows and rows of quietly standing headstones. When the player even stuck two fingers under his nose and raised one arm in a disgusting 'Hitler Salute' as he marched I could have killed the young bastard! Read more »
8 May 2015
It is known that 13 All Blacks died in World War I. Three All Blacks died in Flanders Fields, Belgium. This year on a tour with my wife and friends I visited the three headstones of those who fell in Flanders. This one was at the Underhill Cemetery, near Messines in one direction and Ploegsteert on the other. (The Kiwi soldiers and others called it Plug Street in the same way the town of Ypres became 'Wipers' in mis-pronunciation.) The Underhill Cemetery was so named because it near to a spot that Kiwi tunnelers began to dig to undermine the German held town (of Messines). Read more »
8 May 2015
It was with a particular sadness that I visited the last resting place of the Ponsonby Club's All Black hooker from 1913 and 1914, George Sellars. Read more »
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15 May 2015
Recently I had a couple of days spent in the county of Warwickshire in England and while cruising around there was one place on the map a bloke like me could not avoid. But surprisingly in the town of Rugby I found so much more than the obvious which caught the eye. Read more »
15 May 2015
Here's how an Olympic Rugby Gold Medal will look for those winners of the Men's and Women's competitions in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. They are a simple design - you might even say not particularly artistic - but they will be so keenly fought for! Read more »
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55,000 saw the final in Melbourne, Australia. New Zealand's captain was Tafai Ioasa and the coach Gordon Tietjens! NZ beat England 29-21.
CAKOBAU, George
1 test for Fiji 1939
A distinguished player and official with Fijian rugby, George Cakobau began his playing career in the years prior to World War II. He toured New Zealand as captain and an outstanding five-eighths with the famous unbeaten Fiji team of 1939. (Another member of that team was Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, who became Governor-General of his country and who played a major part in the negotiations following the military coup in 1987.)
Ratu Sir George Cakobau’s prominence in the administration of Fijian rugby marks him as one of the fathers of the game in that country. He was the Fiji Government’s representative on several tours in the 1950s. He was also a Fijian team coach and manager of various Fijian touring teams from 1951 until 1969.
A grandson of the last king of Fiji, he was a long-serving politician, rising to the rank of cabinet minister. In 1972 he was appointed Governor-General of his country.
Cakobau (pronounced Thakombow) was also a Fijian cricketer.
Who captained the British and Irish Lions on tour to New Zealand in 1977?
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