FOOTBALL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 190, 12 August 1922, Page 18

FOOTBALL.

RUGBY. This inuiit.li three North Island teams will take the Southern trail, Hawke's Bay leading the way. The first match will be ngainst Otago on August 12. .Southland on the 16th, and Canterbury on the 19th. Auckland will follow Hawke's Bay, playing South Canterbury, Otago, Southland and Canterbury. A week later Taranaki will teat its strength against the same four unions. A South African scribe, -writing on this year's Currie Cup competition, save: — "Morkel was not the great Gerhard of old. The game certainty, coolness, deliberation ajid judgment were not manifest. Western Province must look for a successor to Gerhard :Morkel ac full-back. J His record for ten years has never -been c.vcelled in South African Rugby. He lias always given of the best to his club. his province, his country. The greater the occasion, the greater his response. Advancing years make their impression' on his play," through no fault of his own. He has set so high a standard that even now so much is expected of him, and he should pass out with his honours stlil thick upon him." The amended rules still have stubborn opponents. Supporting a protest by "Poster," in the Wanganui ••Chronicle,' , ■"Dropkick *' writes as follows in the Wellington "Evening Post":—The only real victory the League game has won in New Zealand is none the less most important, and may prove vital. This is the Dominion adoption of the so-called amended rules. , Opinions mar differ as to their value in improving the game, but there can be no two opinions as to the origin of these "amendments." They are an expurgated chapter out of the Book of League. The story of how they came" to be adopted need not be repeated here —it is an old the effect on the game haa been really revolutionary, and totally destructive 'to the old Rugby tactics. One ia bound to agree with "Poster," that, when our representatives come to revert to the old code, as they must do against any international team of visitors, "New Zealand's disadvantage will be indeed a serious one." And perhaps then the fickle public, which the promoters of the amendments said demanded them, will turn on the men who "gave the public what the public wanted," and accuse them of a betrayal of trust.