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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 22, No. 10. September 14, 1959
After 1960 What?
After 1960 What?
1960, as everybody knows, was the climax of fifty years of selective rugby breeding. The forwards weighed in at eighteen stone and stood seven feet in their aluminium-studded rhinoceros-hide boots.
Their pants were tied with wire and their shoulders were padded with knotted horses' hair.
The backs had the thighs of bullocks and stood up on one another so that their monograms fused.
In every up-and-under a forward died. It took only three tight heads to cripple the finest inside backs of the century. Don Clarke kicked 22 penalties to make it 6668.
In the eleventh hour he pulled the game out of the fire with a potted goal. The record crowd of 120,000 went home disgusted.
They flew out 13 replacements for the Second Test. The crowd of 180,000 was a record. Winston McCarthy reckoned it was the toughest Test he'd ever seen. Clean, but hard. Really fiery.
The crowd was nauseated.
Don Clarke kicked the winning penalty on crutches.
Third Test
The Third Test was decided under the grandstand.
Ten minutes after the game started Don Clarke crept out from under the stand, crept 50 yards, jumped into the air, potted a goal and broke his neck. The record crowd—but who gives a damn for the crowd.
Then Winston McCarthy and the manager went home. My goodness those boys played well. Really fiery.
We never lost a Maori.
—R.S.V.P.