FOOTBALL.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 155, 30 June 1917, Page 14

FOOTBALL.

RUGBY.

The ticket system as proposed by the Wellington Rugby Union to try and save Athletic Park, provides for the issue of tickets at 10/ each, bearing the following; appeal:—"The Wellington Rugby Union appeal to all old players, supporters and friends of the game to assist them to retain the Athletic Park for Rugby football until such time as our boys return from the front. More than 1500 of our players and club members have answered the call to arms, and their absence, combined with tho effects of the war has reduced our income to practically nothing, while our yearly expenditure for rates, rent and interest is over £600. Our funds are rigidly conserved to Bave the park for Rugby football. All work in connection with the park is performed by members of the management committee who give their services solely for the love of the game. We earnestly ask you to lend a hand now, so that the Athletic Park will be a Rugby ground when our footballers return after having fought for their King and country."

EvTdently things were not as they should have been in the recent game at Christchurch, between Marist Brothers and Linwood, for, says a writer in the "Sun":—"Harking back over a considerable experience of Rugby football in many parts of New Zealand, the present writer cannot recollect a parallel to the Marists-Linwood match, in impudent defiance of the canons of sport and in naked, unashamed brutality. At times the punching and the kicking were so free that it seemed as if only a little incitement from the spectators would cause a so-called football match to degenerate into a plain fight between the two sets of forwards. However, most of the crowd of spectators on the touchline on which the writer was standing were so disgusted with the sorry exhibition that when an occasional cry of "put in the boot' did arise it was brusquely intimated to the offender that there was more than enough of 'the boot' in the game already. Avowed partisans of one or other of the teams were just as quick to condemn the brutalities of members of their favoured team as were supporters of the other team. It is stated, however, that on the opposite touchline some spectators were too free in their remarks. The fact that many onlookers made use of boxing terms in their remarks on the game, and that, "How many rounds is this supposed to last?" was a question one frequently heard, is in itself a significant commentary on the match. But the noble 6port of boxing would not tolerate such "all in" methods as were displayed at times at Linwood Park on Saturday. A fortnight ago the "Sun" had occasion to comment on unsportsmanlike play which occurred in the Albion-Mariste' match. But that wa6 but a skirmish in comparison with the Marists-Linwood battle. In the latter, fists and elbows were used on opponents almost as frequently as feet were—and feet alone were used far too often. The most astounding part of it all was the impudent openness with which fists and elbows were used, but apparently without the referee observing these incidents. The only explanation one can offer is that the referee was so intent on the ball and the men nearest to it that he did not see what was happening a little distance away, and that when he did see, in the tight work, anything which went beyond the bounds of reasonably hard play he was unable, in the medley of green jerseys and green-and-black ones, to detect the offender.