NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 182, 3 August 1926, Page 11

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

All Blacks play Auckland to-morrow. Auckland plays Taranaki on Saturday. Southern provinces want to see All Blacks in action. Wellington plays Hawfce's Bay at Napier next Saturday week. Keene (broken collarbone) will not he available again this season. Sacred Heart Old Boys will play a match against Present Boys on the 14th of this month. Pollard Cup matches will continue on Saturday while the representative team is away in New Plymouth. Injuries will prevent Olsen (University) and Mitchell (College Rifles) from playing again this season. With probably more than half their regular fifteen away in New Plymouth this week-end, Ponsonby will have a hard job to field a team on Saturday. Shore who have a bye in this week's Pollard Cup series, are endeavouring to arrange a match at Hamilton for Saturday. Reports from the South indicate that Wellington will make a big effort on the 14th to lift the Ranfurly Shield, which Hawke's Bay took from, them in , 1922, and has held ever since. Cliff Porter may not play again this season owing to injuries received in Australia. He will be a big loss to Wellington in the shield match on the 14th. The injury sustained by D. Reid (Shore) on Saturday when playing for the "Rest" is not serious. He will be available for the seasiders in the remaining matches.

Lincoln (Ponsonby) was badly smashed up on Saturday, his collarbone luing fractured in two places, in addition to a facial injury. Rugbeians will w.sh him a speedy recovery. "When the next All Black visit to .Sydney is made a different method of appointing the referee will most likely be adopted. The present system lays itself open to abuse, and following the Third Test in Sydney the All Blacks were loud in dispraise of its effects." — "Smith's Weekly."

N. Cammick, flyweight champion boxer of Auckland, had the misfortune to break a finger when acting in his usual capacity behind the scrum in one of the Ponsonby junior teams on Saturday.

In Jenkin, Lamb and Entrican, the University Colts have a great trio. Bark, the big forward of the team, is also a fine cut of a player. This quartet, and Pirritt, Jenkin IL, Sheen, Henderson and Harrop, are making the trip to the Islands this month, as also is Carter, the Training College five-eighth.

Heavy list of injuries and sickness amongst returning All Blacks while in Australia. Only one - player went through the tour from start to finish without being incapacitated in some way or other for the time being. The following details give an interesting comparison between the 1924 All Blacks and the 1926 N.Z. League team in age, weight and height:—l 924 All Blacks, 24 years, 12st 41b, sft lOin; 1926 League team, 25* years, 12st IOHb, sft lOJin. After the First Test against New South Wales, the Sydney barrackers christened the All Blacks "The Clydesdales." The nickname, however, died a natural death in the next two games for the Test match and rubber.

It was Otago University's turn to scrape home by a single point in Dunedin on Saturday, after being on the losing end of the stick in an exactly similar fashion the previous week-end. The match gives the students the Dunedin premiership for 1926. Hopkins (University) is back in the firing line again after being out of the game since last season. He showed out well for the students against Ponsonby, and if he should reproduce the form that gained him a place in the New Zealand University side of a couple of seasons ago, he will be a valuable man in the Pollard Cup series. Geoff Alley, the 15$ stone forward in the All Blacks, sold his farm in Southland prior to leaving for Australia, and is to enter the ministry. He will take a course of study at Canterbury College, and in future his football will be played in the red and blackoiniform of the Canterbury province. Playing five-eighth in a match at Taihape on Saturday, Moke Bellis, Maoriland's most famous veteran, had to he carried off with slight concussion. This battle-scarred old warrior first broke into the limelight of big football in the New Zealand Army team of 1919. He was captain of the 1922 All Blacks, who had the somewhat unenviable distinction of losing the rubber against the New South Welshmen for the first and only time in ; the history of these contests. In the following year Moke got a bit of his own back by playing a great game against the Sydneysiders in Christchurch, New Zealand winning the match by a substantial margin. In 1924, he overtrained, and was stale for the All Black trials, the inexorable rule of the Big Seven, "present form only," putting him out of court for tbe great adventure, but in 1925 he registered a remarkable comeback, playing as well as ever he did on the Wanganui team's southern tour. In his prime he was one of the fastest big men of his day, a great leader of a pack, and a sportsman to his finger tips. A host of friends up and down the Dominion will wish him a speedy recovery from his injury.