SPORT OF THE YEAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 306, 26 December 1924, Page 9

SPORT OF THE YEAR.

. t THE ALL BLACKS' SUCCESS. » jb i TEAM GAMES AND OTHERS, t r REVIEW OF 10-24. A \.r n n follower of sport rang up the c telephone exchange lar-t Sunday morn-| g ins and asked what the score was, to! 0 1.6 informed by the »irl who answered L the call that tho All Blocks didn't have n a match on Saturday, lie apologised f> jor not having been more explicit in his "• inouirv, anil explained that, having h lived for a considerable time in Sydney, r l lie had fur the moment forgotten about h the All Blacks in his eagerness to hear h how the Kngland v. Australia cricket s match wa-i progressing. The telephone ( girl didn't know, and ihe inquirer sadly t reali.-ed that different sports have dif- r fereril public value-- in different conn- s trie?. Rugby football undoubtedly re- 1 mains the national game in Now Zca- i> land, and, a-, such, takes lir~t place in a our review of the year's spin. Cnfortun- " alflv the playing year of sports doc-; v not conform with the ordinary calendar j : year, and when dealing with a number ' of Barnes in review at the end of Decem- * her one has to deal with rather eonfns- ,l ing 'hyphenated figures to denote the ' eeason.i. In practice, the sporting year *•' starts on All Pools Day and ends on March 31. ' ]i Rugby of the Year. <. To return to Rugby, the <;aine this a becomes hyphenated in New Zea- F Jand on account of the British tour, ii running over into l.ii"), so that what l will -o down to history as the crown j » of the All Blacks' glory" or a< the blot l on their 'scutcheon, in the win or loss i ° against Kngland, is as vet unknown. " To date, however, Uugby in I'.UM has s experienced a boom in New Zealand 4 comparable only with that of 190.3 and ° the folowing year, when the first New r Zealand team put the country on the F map by its sensational successes in f Britain. The competition for places in * the All Black team boomed the game all . ever the Dominion, and showed that it ' holds its place in the affections of New Zealanders. The relative strength of the several provinces was little altered t by this accession of new players, and , Hawke's Bay easily held its position as j the premier province and retained the j Kanfurly Shield, in addition to contriibuting six players to the All Blacks. a ■Locally the Auckland province won all B its home games for the second season in succession, but on tour was beaten i>y Hawke's Hay and Wanganui. Every j reason for satisfaction with the standard of the game in Auckland was given • by the results of the first All Black J trial match, when Auckland-North Auckland-Waikato, with a predominance of Auckland players, beat Hawke's Bay- , Bay of Plenty-Poverty Bay, with a predominance of Hawke's Bay players, by ! 18 points to 9 in a game in which the . l-.cst class of play was shown on both ' side 3. A win by Auckland later asainst J the All Blacks by 14—3 was another 2 tribute to the Auckland standard. Nine Auckland players took part in several ' of the All Black trials away from home, and three of them—Cooke, Lucas, c and Badeley—won places in the New ' Zealand team. c What About America? 1 The progress of the New Zealand team t is too well known to need iteration, t Despite a loss against New South Wales j 'hy a very narrow margin in the first .• Test in Sydney, the team won the next ] two Tests handsomely, and in the sub- 1 sequent tour of Britain has won every f game to date. It has only to win two E games in Britain in order to surpass ] the record in wins of the fam- \ <ous 1905 side, so far as Bri- f tain is concerned, but to keep \ up the record it must also win £he two ] games in France for which it is pro- f grammed. The team will return through ( Canada, and the wonder is that nobody , has yet suggested a match in America j against the American team which, ( pfter defeats by one or two English club ■, teams, "went on to Paris and won the Rugby championship at the Olympic \ Games. It is interesting to note that j jio American team has yet beaten an lAII Black team. The 1905 All Blacks z played three games in America, includ- s ing an exhibition game in New York, • «nd the 1913 All Blacks played and won , 38 games in a tour of California and Columbia. In 1910 an American Universities team toured Australia and New Zealand, losing four and drawing one ■(8 —8 against Auckland) of the five games they played. In Australia they played eight games, including two losses against a New Zealand Maori team, and their only success was a win against the Central Western team in Sydney. Should the 1024 All Blacks happen to 1 lose a game in Fiance, there will no \ doubt be a claim on behalf of the -v American Olympic team that they, hay- 8 ing beaten France, are the real "Rugby J champions. r Rugby's Half-brother. I As a half-brother to Rugby, the League \ game has taken a place in New Zealand 1 that demands attention, and in the past 2 year League in New Zealand has E claimed substantial advances in several i respects. For one thing, after a 6eries of < unsuccessful years in the matter of j international games, the New Zealand I team sprang a surprise in robbing the visiting English team of "the Ashes," i Vhich that team had just succeeded in ( wresting from Australia. Three Test ! matches were played in the Dominion. ? and the New Zealand team won the first s two. During the season the Marist Club 3 broke away from the Rugby Union game in Christchurch, and this resulted in j the accession of a number of first-class players to League in Canterbury. £ Auckland continued to hold first place ( amongst the provinces playing the game, a but Canterbury showed advanced ** strength, nnd as a result of playing the , third Test match in Dunedin for pro- r paganda purposes the game secured its first footing in that city. A seijuel to the J success of the Test games has been that n the English League has decided to ' invite New Zealand tn send a team to i, Britain next season, and, with this in | S^ prospect it may lie taken for grunted i "J that the ganie'will boom early in the : j season. !1 Where Britain is Supreme. 5 The other football code, Soccer, 'J remains the only one of the three in j vhich Britain remains supreme. In Now 11 Zealand the notable advance in popu- j larity made by Soccer the previous sea- ; <- Bon was maintained last year. No overseas matches were played by a New Zealand team, but a team of Chinese University students toured the Dominion ■ and attracted a deal of public attention, , £ though their play was not sufficiently { c robust to enable them to win matches, j The premier Auckland team Avon the ( Dominion ,-lub championship, and the < Auckland iuterprovincial team retained | the Brown Shield, denoting the New {Zealand premiership at the game. tie Auckland. £eas.pn iyere* J

games by the Canadian team on its return journey from Australia and by teams from* the visiting British Squadron. Another mark of the game's advance in this city is the progress made by the Football Association wit h a ground it had obtained, and it is expected that this ground, Blandford Park, will be j ready at the beginning of next season for play. '■ 'The Cricket "Ashes." Cricket and hockey, und, to some extent, rowing, are the only other tram games which enter much into tbe life j of a British community. In none of , these has New Zealand entered into < international competition. The cricket , nations are England, Australia and , South Africa, and early in the year ! South Africa made a bid against Eng- , land, but failed to win one of tho five | Test matches. Australia at the moment J bold "the Ashes." and England, which | has regularly failed against Australia , since the war, now has a team in the Commonwealth in the effort to retrieve t the maim of English cricket, but the - result will not be known ere 19-25 is here, .' save that of the first of the live Tests. ( In New Zealand we have had no chances in the last year of testing our cricket . against outside players, to note improvement or otherwise. The champion province, or holder of the Plunkct Shield. ; is Wellington, on last season's play. ■ The shield scries of games for testing the provinces' strength this year opens ' at the end of the week with the : Canterbury v. Auckland game at Christ- i church. Hockey in New Zealand, and in Auckland, lias had a quiet year, but it is t anticipated that the * interprovincial ■ games next year will be more numerous, 1 and that Canterbury, the present < premier province, will have difficulty in retaining the hockey shield. In , team rowing Britain continues to hold \ supremacy, and was the winner at the Olympic dames, where a Murray Bridge eight carried Australia's colours for the first time overseas, and made a creditable ' showing. Xew Zealand's best effort in this direction is restricted to four- ' oared races, and at the last New Zealand regatta a Blenheim crew won the chain- ' pionship. Auckland has not made a ' prominent showing in this sport for some years, but reports are that the standard locally is showing much improvement. America's Strong Hold. In individual sports America continues to supply the greatest number of champions. Jack Dempsey has remained boxing champion of the world during 1924 without a serious challenge, and W. T. Tilden and W. Johnston are t-till at the top of the tennis tree, with every appearance of staying there for another year. The tale of the Olympic Games at Paris, however, showed that America is hard pushed to keep her place. In such specialised field events as high jump, broad jump and pole vault the honours rested safely with the Americans, but in other directions the American supremacy is seriously challenged from several places, and in several instances Americans have been deposed. Charles Paddock has lost his eminence in the 100 metres sprint to H. M. Abrahams, of England, and Fitch, of America, had to take second place to Eric Liddell, of Glasgow, in the 400 metres race. America still can place the greater number of top-notch men on the field for hurdle and flat races up to half a mile, but when it comes to distance running the Finns in Paavo Nurmi, A. Stenroos and Willie Ritola have the race all to themselves. Then the Australian, A. W. Winter, out-dis-tanced the Americans in their hop-step-jump specialty, and in swimming Andrew Charlton (Australia) and Arne Borg (Sweden), were able to take the honours from the representatives of the Stars and Stripes, though in sprint swimming both Johnny Weissmuller and Duke Kahanamoku out-stripped everybody. New Zealand's representatives at the Olympic games did not manage to bring off any wins, but A. E. Porritt, C. Purdy and Miss Shand were never at any time outclassed. The year's events make it clear that while no phenomenal athlete has been produced in the Dominion, a general high standard of athletes, able to compete with the world's best is being maintained. Two victories of the year which have brought exceeding joy to America have been the winning of the British open golf championship by Walter Hagen, and the winning of the polo championship by an American team. The latter is practically the only American success at a British team game.