THE RUGBY SEASON.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 198, 25 September 1914, Page 5

THE RUGBY SEASON.

A GLANCE BACKWARDS. With the finish •of the MarlboroughOtago match, played on Tuesday, the curtain fell on the New Zealand Rugby football season of 1914. It has been a protracted season, and the later interprovincial matches have been overshadowed by the European war and interfered with, to some extent, by the formation of the Dominion Expeditionary Force, but it has been interesting.

Yet it has not been a season of great import to the development -of the game in New Zealand. Apart from the measures taken by the Canterbury Rugby Union—of which more anon—there has been no such movement toward improvement of the laws of the game as has marked previous seasons. Nor has anything been done to improve the English Rugby Union's attitude toward the overseas unions. In what may be termed the politics of the game, the only features of the season are the ratification and extension of the New Zealand Union's agreement with the New South Wales and Queensland Unions, and the decision of the delegates to the annual meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Union that all applications from League players for reinstatement as union players should be treated on their merits by the N.Z.R.U. Managing Committee, instead of being dealt with by the old "rule-of-thumb" process. NO NEW METHODS. From the playing point of, view the season generally has not been of great The standard of play has been much the same as it was last year. No new methods of play or tactics have been introduced. A New Zealand team made a triumphant tour of New South Wales and Queensland, but it carried no new lessons to the players across the Tasman Sea—it merely emphasised the old ones or demonstrated anew those that had been half-forgotten. That tour showed that the Rugby Union players of New South Wales and Queensland have not yet regained the position they held before the League code made serious inroads upon them. -In the Dominion, the Ranfurly Shield has been lost "and won again, and until next season it rests in Wellington. The shield is emblematic of Rugby premiership in the Dominion, but on the Actual results of the matches played by the leading unions in the season just closed the supremacy represented by possession of the Ranfurly Shield is somewhat theoretical'. The only representative team which has not been defeated is. Auckland; which beat Taranaki—not in a shield match—and Canterbury, and drew with' Wellington. Auckland, however, has not played nearly as many matches as the other important unions. Wellington has lost two matches —the first 'game 1 with Taranaki and the match with Canterbury—and has drawn one. On a basis of percentage of wins, pride of position is held by Taranaki, which has had the heaviest programme and has won 80 per cent, of its matches during the season. Taranaki played ten representative games, winning eight; and losing two —to Auckland and Wellington—and scoring 113 points to 60. Wellington's percentage of wins is 75.

.CREDIT TO CANTERBURY. Canterbury emerges from the season with distinct credit, not the least portion of which is its victory over Wellington. The Canterbury Union's record of representative matches is as follows:-7-Beat South Canterbury, 12-6; lost to Auckland, 3-11; lost to Taranaki, 5-6; beat Wanganui, 8-0; beat Wairarapa, 22-0; beat Wellington, 11-9; beat Southland, 31-10; beat Otago, 31-8* Thus Canterbury's percentage of wins is also 75, for Canterbury has played eight matches, winning six and losing twoj and scoring 123 points to 50. The team has proved to be a good one, strong in the forwards and very fair in the backs, but it has not given of its best in every match. One pleasing feature of Canterbury's matches is the development of some of -the younger players. Little need be said of Otago's ap~pearances in representative Rugby during the season. Otagd had particularly hard luck in being unable to send; on tour a team that was anything like representative, and consequently its touring team met with heavy defeats all along the . line. It is not only for the performances of it's representative teams that the Canterbury Rugby Union deserves congratulations. The union's season was a successful one all,round. The senior club competition was morß interesting than it had been for several years, and, j in consequende, there were larger attendances of the public at the matches. This is reflected in the union's cashbook. At the beginning of the season the C.R.U., which had a credit balance of just under £SO, was in a quandary as to how it could finance the North Island tour, to which it was pledged. But the receipts from the club matches improved so much that the union was relieved of anxiety regarding the expense of the northern tour, and it finishes the season with a credit balance. Success has attended the Canterbury Union's endeavour to improve the game by making the rule regarding the knocks-on more elastic, by restricting the activities of wing-forwards, and by insisting that referees shall make proper use of the advantage law. These have tended to make the game faster, more open, and more attractive. Other aspects of the season have been commented upon at some length in these columns before, so at that Ave may leave it. Rugby passes. Hail to his successor, King Cricket! A.L.C. L'ENVOI. So over, all over: the whistle peals "Time!" The field lies bare to the last of the light. Too late to tell what you might have done; The goal is kicked, and a stronger has won. To you is only the glow of the fight; To you is only the soreness and grime. What matter, so long as you played the game? What matter, provided you filled your place, And took the fall, the kick, the blow— And tackled the foeman clean and low — Blind sun in your eyes, wet wind in your face — What matter, so met ye the luck as it came? — SEAFOBTH MACKENZIE,