1890 - The 1st Game That Never Was

James Samuel Foster

On May 24th 1890, delegates from eleven West Coast rugby clubs unanimously voted on their desire to form the West Coast Rugby Union, and shortly after the Unions inception, the secretary of the West Coast Rugby Union was instructed to send an invitation to the Nelson Rugby Union, inviting their team to travel to Greymouth as early as possible, to be West Coast's first opponent.

At a meeting of the West Coast Rugby union in early August 1890, a telegram from the Nelson Rugby Union was read stating that they would be unable to send a representative team for the proposed fixture.

It was then moved by Mr Gibson, and seconded by Mr Wickes, that a West Coast representative team be selected to travel to Nelson instead, to play them on September 23rd, providing the Union was able to procure a steamer to take them.

A trial match was then played to select the West Coast team, which was played in front of a crowd of around 200 people at Victoria Park. It was a North v South match, featuring sides selected from clubs north of the Grey River, against one from clubs south of the Grey River. 

The northern team was composed of five players each from the Westport, Reefton and Brunnerton clubs, while the southern team included nine players from the Greymouth club, three from White Star and three from the Hokitika club.

The match was won by the southern team, whose backs outplayed their opponents despite the northern team being the more fancied to win of the two, with the northern forwards being described before the match as "a very powerful body of men, including three Reefton giants who would carry all before them".

Although there was just the solitary unconverted try in the game scored by the south's captain, Craddock, and a full time score of one point to nil, the match itself was described as being 'most exciting throughout', while 'some splendid individual play was noticed on both sides, but combination was most apparent in the southern team'.

At the conclusion of the match, the following fifteen was selected to play in West Coast's historic inaugural game against Nelson:

Fullback, Mills; three quarters, Harden, Sheedy, and Daly; halves, Ashton, Jones, and Woodward; forwards, Ryan, Foster, Mullins, Muir, McGregor, Kingswell, Thorn and Aitken.

With the West Coast Union having arranged for the S.S Kennedy to transport the side to Nelson for the fixture, the team was all packed and ready to sail to Nelson to mark the dawn of the new Union with an inaugural match against Nelson.

Cruelly though for the fifteen players chosen for the historic match, the S.S Kennedy was unable to negotiate the Grey river bar, and the plan to play the match was abandoned. Incidentally, the S.S Kennedy was said to have set a record of sorts in its time, by going aground three times on the bar, and surviving wreck on each occasion.

West Coast had to wait until 1893 for its first match which was also against Nelson in Nelson, and of the fifteen players that were chosen in 1890, 12 of them were never selected for a West Coast side again.

Records show that from the original side in 1890, the names of backs, Sheedy and Jones also appeared as backs in the West Coast side that eventually played in 1893, with Foster, a forward, appearing as a forward in the 1895 West Coast team.

While records of the original side selected did not give the players first initials, it is thought the same three players selected in 1890, were in fact, Daniel Sheedy, William H (Disher) Jones of the 1893 side, and James Samuel Foster, of the 1895 team.