Rugby Premiers celebrate 50 years

Members of the New Town High School 1971 Under 16 Rugby Team met on Saturday 17th July to celebrate their Grand Final win 50 years ago.

They were joined by Assistant Principal, Ben Wilson for a lunch at University Rugby Clubrooms. It was at this ground where the ‘Boys of the Blue Triangle’ won the HR Clark Shield by defeating Taroona High School.

Ben Wilson helps celebrate 50 years since 1971 Rugby Premiership

Because of COVID restrictions Captain Chris Paul, Ross Ferrar and Ken MacKay were unable to attend the lunch.

Coached by Simon Boss-Walker the team was undefeated throughout the season and were able to account for Taroona 19-4 in the final game in 1971.

Well known TV Personality Gordon ‘The Voice of Rugby’ Bray sent a message of congratulations to the team which he rated as one of the best Schoolboys Rugby teams.

The former players shared many recollections of the game and other memories from the past 50 years. They also ‘enlightened’ Ben on how it was in the good old days.

NTHS Under 16 team – winners of the HR Clark Shield

L-R Barry Woods, Mark Webster, Ben Wilson, Tim Oxley, Leigh Sealy, Ron Plummer, Robin Kerstan, Rob Luck.

Myths and Legends

A Confession

My first contact with the school was in 1942 when the Junior Technical School was in Bathurst Street and I was a student studying Chemistry at University. Our laboratory was on the second floor immediately above the broad driveway on which the school assemblies were held. The boys were tightly packed into the limited space available and we looked down upon them, as it were, from a great height. We used to sprinkle them with a fine spray of water blown from apparatus called wash bottles. They would look up at us in frustrated desperation. They could do nothing about it. They were too crowded to be able to move aside and, under the discipline of the school, unable to create a disturbance. They were sitting ducks. The university students very unfairly took advantage of the situation. But if looks could kill, we would have been consigned to everlasting perdition.

Twenty-four years later I re-appeared on the scene as Headmaster. It is remarkable how greatly perspectives can change in twenty-four years.

Des Mahoney

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