Choice Between Empire Games
p. 72 · Read in the full issue
They All Want Joe!
Choice Between Empire Games or Australian Rugby
A CERTAIN rivalry seems to be developing between sporting bodies for the services of Josefa Levula, of Fiji, who is a first-class runner and also a first-class Rugby footballer.
Australian Rugby Union officials, who are organising the visit to that country of a Fiji Rugby Union team in May-July this year, make no secret of the fact that they want “Joe”—as he is known to thousands of Australian Rugby fans —to be with the touring team. When the Fijian team was in Australia a couple of seasons ago, people paid their money just to see the gang ling Joe scoop up the ball in his huge fists and dash down the side lines. They screamed with delight every time he came within looking distance of the ball, and the howl “Jo-o-e” could be heard, like some strange incantation, rising at given times, from football grounds all around Sydney. The Australian Rugby Union naturally wants this popular idol back again in mid -1954.
On the other hand, the Fiji Athletic Association wants Levula for the Empire Games in Canada in August, and they fear that if he goes to Australia he will not be
available or not be fit for the nor thern trip.
Australian Rugby Union officials are cagily pointing out that the Fijians will receive 20 per cent, of the takings at Australian matches — and that Levula will make a dif ference to receipts. The Canadian trip, on the other hand, is just for love and honour. No profits at all.
In order to locate and identify plants on an experimental farm at Palau, US Trust Territory of Micro nesia, which was largely destroyed
during the war, a Japanese scien tist, Yasuhei Ashizwa, has been brought from Japan to Koror Island by the Administration. Ash izwa was in chrage of the farm known as the Tropical Industries Institute—from 1936 to 1944. ][ Mrs - F - Schober, of Tonga, and her daughter Margaret flew to Sydney in February to attend the wedding of her son, Bernard, at St Philips, Church Hill, on February 27, to Miss Betty Pearce, only daughter of Mrs. V. Pearce, of Bondi.