KeithQuinnRugby
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You are here: Home » Favourite Photos » Where All Blacks Fell: A visit to the last resting place of a man who has no known grave
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.
George was a top bloke, his family and friends all said, and no one would have been surprised that he died assisting a colleague on 7 June 1917. A part-Maori George was on the slopes of Messines Ridge in only his fifth day on the battlefield. It was typical that he saw a wounded colleague and rushed to help him. But a shell exploded near them both, so close that, to speak directly, George and his mate were blown to bits.
So it is with a particular sense of irony that when one goes to pay tribute to some fallen footballers of WWI, a number of them are only represented by a name carved, albeit in honour, on a marble wall. Sad but true in the case of Private George Maurice Victor Sellars.
The photo was taken at the Messines Ridge Memorial.
Comments 1
It was tough times for the ABs at the Rugby World Cup in Cardiff. The alleged 'forward' pass by a Frenchman led to a try - and New Zealand headed homewards.
WAKEFIELD, WAVELL
Leicester, Harlequins and England
31 internationals for England 1920–27
William Wavell Wakefield was a highly successful player, thinker, innovator and captain. He became one of the world game’s best administrators, becoming an England committeeman before rising to be president of the Rugby Football Union in 1950. He served as a delegate on the International Rugby Board for the seven years up until 1961 and wrote extensively about the game, in his later years becoming a symbol of wise counsel for amateur rugby and its future.
The young Wavell Wakefield was a supremely fit rugby player, winning his 31 international caps as a flanker, lock or No. 8. He first played for England in 1920, when a strong Welsh side thrashed him and 10 other new caps. The selectors persevered with many of the new players, and out of their rising confidence came one of England’s best eras.
The England team, with Wakefield, the brilliant halfbacks ‘Dave’ Davies and Cyril Kershaw, Cyril Lowe the wing, and forwards Tom Voyce and Ronald Cove-Smith, combined to win the Five Nations crown three times in the first four years of the 1920s.
Wakefield played his first 21 internationals consecutively, winning 17 times with one draw. By 1927, when he was hampered by injuries, the highly popular and respected ‘Wakers’ had reached 31 caps – an England record for any position and one that stood until 1969, when it was passed by D.P. ‘Budge’ Rogers.
Wakefield is often remembered as one of England’s best captains and tactical planners. As captain of Cambridge University and England, he insisted on each member of the forward pack undertaking set roles, rather than plodding together from set piece to set piece, as had been the style.
Under his leadership, England’s back row combinations became the first in the world to work together as a ‘team’, which is commonplace in modern times. Certainly he was highly successful. In his seven seasons in the England team he took part in three championship wins, three Triple Crowns and three Grand Slams. It is a tribute to him that those years came to be known in English rugby as the ‘Wakefield Era’.
After his active rugby days he was a Member of Parliament and then became the first Baron Wakefield of Kendal. He died in 1983.
Which New Zealand Tennis Sponsor's representative always included two of his 'own' invented words in his speeches at the Heineken Open prize givings in the 2000s - and what were the words?
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27 December 2015 (8 years ago)
Robomo
Thanks Keith.
George Sellars was my great-uncle and George was included as my middle name in his memory. I knew he was killed at Messines but not the circumstances. My father (George Sellars), nephew of GMV Sellars was a Ponsonby Football Club Stalwart and also played many games for Auckland and for Combined Services in England during WWII. I'm visiting Belgium in September 2016 and the Messines memorial is high on my list of places to visit.