Vintage Rugby

The Rugby season is now well and truly over for 1960, but even at this late atage we couldn't resist printing these three pictures of one of the highlights of the Nelson Rugby season - the re-enactment of the first Rugby football match played in New Zealand. It was in 1870 - two years after the formation of the Nelson club - that the Nelson club and an 18 from Nelson College, met at the Botanics. The re-enactment was staged as part of the Nelson Rugby Union's 75th jubilee celebrations. Hilarity was the order of the day.

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The teams, garbed in the Rugby fashions of the day

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As was the custom of the day, the managers (Gus Meachen, foreground and Maurie Pugh, striped blazer) tossed before the critical eye of the bowler-hatted referee (Bob McLean)

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The managers discuss some points with the referee