A LEAGUE REVIEW.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 223, 19 September 1919, Page 8

A LEAGUE REVIEW.

1 j AN INTEKESTTWG SEASON. STANDARD NOT SO HIGH. The events and the results of the 1919 League football season here in Auckland offer material enough for several rather contrasting conclusions. The season is now practicality over, and the Auckland i . League is in a far stronger position both i popularly and financially than it was ■before the winter. But the greater majority of those who consider themselves jto be judges of football consider that the ! standard of League play haa detoriateds ■ Apart altogether from those sentimental I attributes of memory which induce the | old hands to compare the past years with j the present to its detriment there is i much evidence that the games of this season have not been the eijuals of those I of three, four, five and six years ago. The contests have been just as keen but the players have not been so skilful; the defensive work of the different teams has been generally atrecious, team combination ha£ deteriorated until in it 3 higher sense it has practically vanished; there haa been too much tendency to play tlie man instead of the ball; and there has been something wrong with tlie scrimmage rules and the playing of the bail. Apart from these rather obvious defects in the practice of the game —and they are not all the fault of the players —the season has been highly successful. | To date the Auckland Rugby League has taken well over £2000, and it must be somewhere near £1000 on the right side of the ledger. This i* a 9tep farther up than last year with its balance of something like* £300, and this season, with one more big match to go, the gate receipts are a hill £300 over those of 1918. The competitions themselves have been keenly contested, with 4(5 teams taking the field at the beginning of the season. Of the right seniors two teams, Otahuhu and CJrafton, backed down early in the running, and left Ponsonby, Maritime. Newton, City, Marist Old* Boys and Shore to fight for the championship honours. It is interesting to notice that Ponsonby and Newton, the two old rivals, come out about evens, for the Three I Lamps team captured the championship and the others caught the golden Roope Rooster, with Maritime a very close second in both instances. Shore put up a irame light right through the piece, but the honours for grit must go to Marist Old Boys. City were rather inconsistent a-s -a. tenm. Sunnyside, City. PonsOnhy, Shore, Maritime, Mangere and Otahuhu were all running in the junior championship, which provided some tinu games, some of them more interesting ii« clean fast games than were many of the senior matches. Sunnyside, the victors, won by a point from City, with horn they drew last Saturday on tlie Domain. The thirds were represented at first by .Manukau, Northcote, Ponsonby, City, Sunnyside, Otahuhu and Shore, but during the winter the four latter teams I pulled out and left Manukau in the lead i with not a loss to their debit, Xorthcote j being runners-up. Every one of the eight teams in the fourth grade stuck it right to the end. City came out ahead by a point from Otahuhu, with Maritime on the same line, und after them tailed Sunnyside, Richmond and Northcote. Maritime had begun the season with a senior and a second team, but Post ajid Telegraph affiliated with them in the middle of the competition and thus gave the watersiders a fourth, fifth and sixth team. The fifth grade championship is not decided vet, but with two games to be played—City , v. Shore and City v. Ponsonby—the "red and blacks are three points ahead of both Shore and Manukau. This competition was unusually interesting, for there were ten teams engaged, the others being Ponsonby (2), Richmond (2), Otahuhu, Northcote and Maritime. Vonsonby, City, Shore, Maritime, Richmond and Munukau fought out the sixth grade, und Ponsonby, being one championship point ahead of City, met and defeated tliem by seven to three in the curtain-raiser games to the third Australasian test. The Referees' Association is another subsidiary body upon whose efficiency depends to a very large extent the progress of the game. Capable whistleholders have always been scarce, and the increased number of to be controlled this year has often put Ihe members of the Association :n a lather awkward position. Tlie standard of refcrccing has been well maintained, and, though it cannot be said that an enormous amount of progress has been shown, yet the members of this live Association, hampered by one o- two rulee that are not conspicuous for their clarity, and hindered by many players •who neither know nor follow either the letter or the spirit of the rulings, liave no occasion to be ashamed of their showing this year. The recently-formed Players' Association, which has been conceived by a f<'W hardy spirits with the welfare o: the game at heart and their own ideas always almifevt exclusively in mind, is another factor that has great potentialities for the development of the jramo. The avowed intention of the founders ir, apparently to bring players and olfioiitk into closer harmony, and to gi>v> them a community of interests. The obje.-t is laudable, and there is need for tomething of this eort to bridge the exist-ng giilf. but whether the methods will achieve their purpose remains to be seen. Circumstances pre\'ented several of the visits from other centres that have been a feature of League football. Can* terbury were debarred from coming this year by outside influences, though Hawke's Bay put in an appearance and fell before the superior experience of Auckland. It was only with difficulty i that the New Zealand Council was able Ito send a New Zealand team over to ! Australia. The tour there wae not a : milestone in league history, and the i success of the Australians here in their j return tour is an object lesson to those i -who have been raeh enough to consider ! that New Zealand in general, and Auck- j land in particular as the New Zealand j , stronghold of the code, has learned all j there is to be known about Northern | ! Union game. i J The Thacker Shield is still in Ponsonjby's keeping, but travelling difficulties conspired to prevent other Leagues from | coming up to, fight for- it. The same I abnormal circumstances prevented the I proposed trip of Maritime to Hawke'e j Bay, although the junior reps, went | down and made a brilliantly successful I showing. : In general the League in Auckland hae certainly gone ahead during tHis year. Tt has ( made no tremendous forward strides, but its position is greatly strengthened, and given alert and progressive methods of management and an improvement in the standard of the players its prospects are decidely hijghjt.