By scoring a total of 99 runs on Saturday, Chipperfield just missed by one run inclusion among that select band of cricketing heroes who have scored a century in their first Test match, a chance that will never come his way again.

Here is the case of the men who for victory
   Struggle and fail by the skin of their teeth.
And here with a sigh is a song valedictory,
   Bidding farewell to a nearly-won wreath.
Yet not those alone who are crowned with the bays
Win the full measure of popular praise.

Others have won to success, and the vanity,
   Coupled with triumph in victory's rare,
Yet far more akin to all baffled humanity
   Stand those who have battled and missed by a hair.
Splendid in failure, unspoiled in defeat,
Are the men who go down with the task near complete.

Not yet set apart by a flawless facility,
   Not yet isolated by arrogant fame,
They still remain one with our common humility,
   Baulked of the palm by the luck of the game.
We'll remember the fight while the prize we forget;
And plaudits come kindlier touched by regret.

So this is a song to all triumphs unrealised,
   Deeds unrecorded in archives of fame,
Of coveted laurels and honors idealised,
   Lost by an inch through a turn of the game;
A song of lost hope, yet of sympathy found,
Of glorious failures and victors uncrowned.

"Den"
Herald, 11 June 1934, p6