Sports Review

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. „ . and robbers again , has V; become almost a familiar catch cry at the Fiji Golf Club, Samabula, whenever Suva police prosecutor, Stan Gullidge wins a tournament, and Stan this year has taken out several trophies.

Stan, who resigned from the South Australian Police Force a decade ago to go to Fiji, Is a golfer of more than average ability, In fact, “burning up the club course is his favourite hobby.

When he is not helping the courts to see that justice is done, Stan is at the course, keeping his eye in. As anyone who knows wh&t a Fiji summer is like, even rune holes can be as gruellmg as a prison sentence, and Stan .has helped to put quite P r °P° t wf UVa Cri 4tan al has l wo? champlfntwp a a S nd W e°nou h g h other* toSSteoShies t 0 whfch 35 are “gh to decorate all the sideboards he is pvpr likplv to own nlus b fpw more We do not know how many opponents he has “robbed" of vietory by brilliant golf, but it can be safely asserted that he has “copped” a giant’s share of the honours.

Integrated Rugby Is

Drawing NBarer

Norman Baxter, in Suva FOR a couple of years there have and Fijian rugby competitions.

Most of the mutterings have come v??a£fheln glVe g ° Rnt Inv nf the local Euronean But many of the local European

enthusiasts, coaches and officials, throw up their hands in horror whenever a merger is mooted. They do not hesitate to voice trenchant criticism of these outsiders “who come in and tell us how to run our sff s-irs ,> .

The day of the conservatives could be drawing to a close for there is now a positive move to start a junior competition, with an age limit of 16, for all comers. From the juniors they would pass 1 on to the higher grades if they were good enough.

Then at long last Suva European players, if they have the ability, will have a chance of representing Fiji.

One of the main European argu ments against a merger is that their players would not be strong enough or fast enough for the top Fijian grades.

These arguments are a lot of twaddle, for many Europeans in odd mixed friendly matches have shown that they are as good as their Fijian opponents, and so far none has been left for dead on the “battlefield”.

The Fijians, anyway, want in tegration, and they have the con trol of Suva rugby affairs. It is a moral certainty, however, that the European diehards will fight the move right up to the last ditch.

They Want To

Outlaw League

NEW GUINEA was having a dif ferent kind of Rugby problem in April. The neighbouring native Local Government Councils of Moripi and Moveave-Toaripi, in the Gulf District, announced in their newsletter that they thought “that Rugby football should not be started again for the time being”.

The story behind that simple sentence was that the councils had decided that the game was just too rough, it should be outlawed as be ing dangerous.

Two native players have recently been injured seriously in the area and there are plenty of minor in juries every game.

As if to underline the Gulf Dis trict’s views, there came news from Lae, on the other side of New Guinea, of a fierce fist-swinging brawl between native spectators and footballers in a Rugby League game there.

The uproar needed police re inforcements to quell it, and 12 natives were later fined for riotous behaviour.