Poetic passion for the country's great game | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

The shirts may be tighter and the stadiums bigger, but the passion for the game has not changed.

A 102-year-old book of rugby poetry has been reprinted in Greytown as a limited edition book by Cobblestones printer Tony King.

The poems are by Ernest L. Eyres, who was born in 1889 in Dunedin, and was one of a few wandering minstrels who travelled around the country in the early 1900s promoting their verse in newspapers.

A few weeks ago, Mr King came across a book containing about 40 of the poems, dated 1909, and decided to pick out the rugby-themed verses for his book, Versus.

The five poems feature themes including our passion for the game, not hogging the ball, a broken down player, observations of each position, and a piece about "the guy in the stand who thinks he knows everything", Mr King said.

"What got me about the poems was, even forgetting about the Rugby World Cup, that rugby is a real focus in New Zealand and it's always been a big passion in our country, and the passion we had for rugby then is passion that we still have today.

"It shows people today in 2011 that the same feelings we get now while watching rugby are exactly the same as they were in the 20th century."

And the book has been printed with special care, too.

Mr King found the type for the title Versus at the bottom of a dusty box which had been at the Bush Telegraph offices in Pahiatua for about 100 years.

The type was set on a 1955 Intertype machine at the Taranaki Aviation Transport and Technology Museum in New Plymouth, and the book was printed at Cobblestones Early Settlers' Museum in Greytown on a century-old, hand-fed printing press.

The 50 limited-edition books took three days to print at the museum Printing Works set up nearly a year ago.

"I noticed there was an empty building at Cobblestones which I think was used for storage and approached the museum to see if they wanted me to set up a live exhibit with working presses from that time."

While printing is a lifelong passion of Mr King's, he has never played rugby.

"I used to play hockey, but New Zealand's passion for rugby really struck me in the poems - they are fantastic poems - so I thought it would be an exciting project to reprint them."

Versus is available at the Cobblestones Early Settlers Museum for $10.