KeithQuinnRugby
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17 July 2014
Referees haven't always stayed neutral!
In a letter I found at home recently this short bit of refereeing whimsy was passed on down to me by the late, great writer Sir Terry ('T.P') McLean. Terry was commenting to me about referees in general and recalled that in the 1920s during the great Hawkes Bay Ranfurly Shield era, the top local whistle-man was a man called Bill O'Neill.
In those days 'home' referees controlled the games when visiting teams came to challenge for the famous trophy. In one challenge the visiting team was ever so slightly alarmed to hear Bill O'Neill when he had called a scrum, say out loud, 'OK boys, we'll scrum it here...and it's our ball in !'
Its a short piece which I publish here just because I can!
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A great day for NZ at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria. Sean Fitzpatrick and John Hart's team silence the ghosts with a 33-26 triumph.
GAINSFORD, JOHN
Western Province and South Africa
33 internationals for Sth Africa 1960–67
One of South Africa’s greatest players, John Gainsford played in what was then a record number of internationals for a centre in the Springbok colours.
A big, strong-running centre with positive instincts for attack, he made his first-class debut as a 19-year-old, before joining the Junior Springboks for their 1959 tour of Argentina. He came into the South African test team in 1960, when he appeared in the only test against the Scotland touring team and in all four games the same season against the All Blacks. Thereafter, until 1967, only injury kept him out of test teams.
In his seven seasons as a Springbok, Gainsford earned world-wide respect. After only five years he became the highest-capped South African player, beating the old mark of 28 tests, held by Johan Claassen, in the third test at Christchurch on the 1965 New Zealand tour. This was a feat which he celebrated by scoring two brilliant tries as the Springboks came back from 5–16 at half-time to score a notable victory.
At the time of his retirement, after the 1967 tour by France, Gainsford was also South Africa’s top test try-scorer, with eight tries. Both his appearances and try tally records were broken in subsequent years, but it took until 2001 before Japie Mulder passed his record for being South Africa’s highest-capped centre.
What was significant about J.I.Rees (Wales) and W.R.Logan (Scotland) captaining their countries against each other in 1937?
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