Low Standard In Rugby Matches
p. 31 · Read in the full issue
BECAUSE of the absence of teams from Fiji and Tonga, the standard of Rugby at the Games was never as high as it was in Suva three years earlier, and Papua-New Guinea carried off a gold medal that it almost certainly would not have won otherwise.
Fiji and Tonga (the gold and silver medallists in Suva) did not field teams this time because their Rugby seasons had been over for several months, and it was impracticable to keep their players together.
Western Samoa, the only other team to play in Suva, was not represented either.
Even so, four teams — P-NG, New Caledonia, New Hebrides and Wallis and Futuna —turned out this time.
P-NG, led by Dr. Kerry Larkin and Colin Kahn, was streets ahead of all the others, winning its three matches 47-3, 54-5 and 34-3.
But P-NG did not play brilliant Rugby. The fact is that the other three teams hardly knew how to play at all.