FOOTBALL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 72, 24 March 1906, Page 12

FOOTBALL.

The A.R.U. annual meeting will be held the first week after Easter. Most of the club meetings will be held in the last week of March, and the first and second weeks of April. Alexandra Park will be available earlier this year than formerly, as the trotting meetings will be concluded by the last week in April. The Ponsonby. Dial riot Football Club will hold its annual meeting on Friday, March 30th The club had a very sue- j cessful season last yeaj, having won ' the "Silver Football" and the second ' junior championship, and being runners- I up in the first and second grades. By careful management .the committee have j been able (without financial assistance from the A.E.U.) to pay £50 off the training hall mortgage. The club has a real live secretary, to whom no small measure of its success is due. There was little enthusiasm in Wales over the victory gained against Scotland. There was a feeling of general disappointment in regard to the game, and instead of Wales having won by nine points to three the general demeanour suggested they had lost. A Welsh crowd are keen to appreciate and not easily deluded in football matters, aud they were far from satisfied with the form of their team. - The fault to them was the absence of the generally accepted Welsh methods, and any'game without plenty of quick passing and resultant scores fails to come up to the standard, which previous international contingents have raised in Wales. The game should, and most probably will, put an end to the seven forwards and eight backs notion. The playing of an extra back against jSlew Zealand was reasonable, ana" proved wisdom in actual play. To persist in it against England and Scotland was, however, the reverse bf wisdom. Players and spectators were quick to express their disapproval, and it passes comprehension how a far-see-ing and footbally-wdsc committee should determine to experiment in international matches with a formation that had not been practised or accepted by the Welsh clubs. Seven forwards maY hold and heel-out against eight, but only when packing in New Zealand fashion, which is the most scientific scrummage formation yet introduced. In time this formation may be practised and brought as near to perfection as the New _s.eaianders had done, but with it will also grow the notion that behind three half-backs, or, in New Zealandic, one half and two five-eights, three threequarters are ample and four exactly one too many. A wing forward is out of the question, and would never be tole- ! rated ifi Wales, so* that means a team of fourteen., and. not fifteen, players on a side. Glasgow is not coming to Auckland after Si, the tarty Taranaki forward having been t»n*f«xred to the Waha-r-Bga 4iot_oi

The Australian Football Association expects to have five- junior teams playing the game this season. The annual meeting was held last night.

Mackrell will probably wear the Ted and black Jersey!.this.year, ras .Ids. people moved, 'into the „ty~diStrietduring/ hia absence witb the New Zealanders, and bis home on January 1 presumably will be-where his parents happened to reside.

Parnell will have something like a team this year. Todd, five-eighths for City,' is in the district this season, "Bunny" Abbott, New Zealand rep., will also be residing there in all probability, and Plugge, Waterhouse and Absoluni are all likely starters. With these, and the men available last year, provided a little more weight can be got forward, the maroons will have a stronger fifteen than has represented them for some years past.

Scobie McKenzie told mc this week that he intends to persist in the determinetion he expressed at tbe end of last season not to play football again. Scobie has earned the right to retire. Twelve years ago he played his first rep. game. Since then he has represented his province. every year but two, when injured limbs kept Mm out. And few avi'll deny that last season saw him in as good form as ever; few, in Auckland at any rate, but very ihuch regretted his absence from the New Zealand team. Always ready to help and coach bis confrerees, be has been very valuable to his club, and to his province, as more than one prominent player can testify.

The defeat of Scotland by England in the last of the International matches has caused even more comment than the.' success of Ireland over Wales, cabled the previous week. In view of the great game which the Scotsmen put up against the All Blacks, and the comparatively poor display of the English fifteen against the same team, the match was looked upon as a cake-walk for the men from ayont the Tweed. But it wasn't, and the bearers of the rose triumphed over a side which beat the conquerors of Wales, gave the principality all its work to win, and was only beaten by the All Blacks in the last couple of minutes. Details as to whence and the why will be awaited with interest. The result leaves Wales and Ireland, with two wins each, in the lead, so that no nation can claim the championship this year. And if the New Zealand matches are counted the position is no better, for then the Welshmen and the All Blacks would hold the. championship between them with three wins each. As there is no champion there is no holder of the "wooden spoon," Scotland and England haying each to be content with one win, and thus being on a level for the doubtful honour of tbe "booby prize."

The South African Rugby footballers, who are due to visit Britain in a few months, and who are said to be a particularly good lot, have applied for four matches in Wales, but the Welsh Union have decided that unless they received a request for six matches tbe matter could not be entertained. After tho match betweeen Sheffield Wednesday and Prestor North End last month, there were exciting scenes in the streets, the Preston team being stoned and otherwise maltreated. Mounted police escorted the visiting players to the hotel, where one, who was struck on the bead with a clinker, had a severe scalp wound attended to. The New South Wales Metropolitan Rugby Union received £1618 18s 2d in the°shape oif gate receipts last year. In addition, it started the year with a credit balance of £300 6s 6d. There is now an overdraft of £39 16s lid. The biggest items of expenditure are: Teams to "country, £588 IBs 2d; hire of grounds, £308 12s 6d; club sustenance, £202 10s; medical fund and hospitals, £201 7 s 6d; and trophies and medals, £ ISO Bs. The excess of assets over liabilities amounts to £221 18s 2d, the assets including £372" 9s, due by the New South Wales Union in connection with the country tours and the New Zealand matches.

1 The Bishop of Rochester, speaking recently at a large mass meeting of men at Chatham Town Hall, delivered a striking address on football and gambling. He said we did not want to debase good athletics. He v played football himself till he was 30 years old, and he gave it up mainly because of the amount of gambling that used to go on. It was a terrible thing to him to think that when a goal'was kicked £200 or £300 changed hands amongst those who were looking on. Football ceased to be a test of skill and endurance because of the gambling spirit which .prevailed.