RUGBY FOOTBALL.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 250, 21 October 1924, Page 11

RUGBY FOOTBALL.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. A correspondent inquirer} the other day about the number of players of Rugby football in Britain, and we were usable to supply the information. Since then a paragraph appeared in a ' British paper stating that in Yorkshire there are 05 clubs and 20 secondary schools playing the game. Giving a playing membership of CO to each of these -would make the number of players in Yorkshire 4500, where the three ridings of the county have a population of over two million. New Zealand, with a population of about half that of Yorkshire, has 50,000 Rugby players. So I that while about two in every ten of the male population in New Zealand between the ages of 10 years and 30 years play Rugby, the proportion of players in Yorkshire is nbout two in every 200. What with the League and Soccer games the young men of Yorkshire obviously have diversions more popular than Rugby. The ex-New South Wales player, A C Wallace, who figured as a three-quarter for Oxford University and Scotland last season, in the course of a letter to a Sydney friend, Btates the opinion that tho All Blacks will win all thei? matches until they meet the London and Oxfoid lifteens. Of the Oxford side he anticipates :%"£*& W -" !t '. nclude , Kittermastcr (fiveeighth). Smith and Jacobs (wines) McPherson, Aitkcn (New Zealand) filch' nrdson (centres), with Dr. K. L. Raymond as full-back. The half-back poiuUoT ii uncertain. The forwards are likely tn average 13 stone in weight, and most of them have had plenty of big match c-dcH ence, so that Wallace thinks the All Blacks are likely to be seriously tested hv the Oxford University Rugby fifteen ThH game is down for November 20, immediately after-the-game against a team collected from the London Counties. -™«».H.a A correspondent,—"Rugger," asks it ■«,_ All Blacks had to put up £100.Tr show a banking account of that siz.e, before leaving ?>ew Zealand; what is the biggest ground n England; and what __"_£ gest football ground in England. „ £as proposed that each member of the aii Black team should be „blc to show 5 k« i balance of £100 before leaving on the rrin the argument being that S this "*"& guarantee the bona fides of each _£? u £ an amateur, and at the same time be a guarantee that none'of the players would become a charge on the management fund for personal expenses en route/but this proposal was not carried out. Instead inquiries were made to guard against tnlr' mg players who were likely to embarrassed en route, or 'who** .i. ly was likely to entail hardship £, de De _Sf The Twickenham ground P London fj looked on as the-most commodious^" & ground in England, with nc-onimnii. tiii for a little over r.0,000 " n m p\,;i tlnn Wembley Park is said to beah Ir. T accommodate 200,000 spectators and +i Crystal Palace ground lias fiS, 1111 for 100,000. The two latter independent control, and are availnt.i- i 01 * ' Rugby as" for Soccer matches. ;• for I The All Blacks to-morrow nlav T- nsliire. their fourth match ___i„J? l,ca - English Northern Counties. __t . an Lancashire made an indifferent Ki,,L! MS(m the county competition their on£ ns n being against Yorkshire when _cTLf Wl £ a score of 19 to 6. At the same Hri,_ U ;- v , p to be noted that the champC cou _?v „ is from Cumberland beat them iV 8 !! points to 9 Lancashire drew with rH, by -, 10 14-14, lost 9-12 to Durham, _ nd C R h ,l hi r e Northumberland. On the r **«n. 6 'l d to games the New Zealanaers W- the against Durham, CheshirTand VUt Pl ?.' eU confidence in the ability of the Ci? r fe llire; to retain their winning form . la . cks Lancashire to-morro__ ag well _■ aga ! nst Cumberland on SaturaaV t " sains t Increased locally. '' atts been