FOOTBALL.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 72, 17 March 1914, Page 7

FOOTBALL.

HINTS TO YOUNG PLAYERS

With the approach of the football season the following useful hints on football from a recent issue of 'The Daily Mail' will be of interest:— With the aid of a blackboard and a piece of chalk Mr Adrian Stoop, the famous English international half-back, gave some useful hints to an admiring audience of young Rugby p'nyers at Carr's Restaurant, in the Strand, dealing particularly with back play. The first duty of the full-back, he said, was to kick. His object was very largely to rest his own tor wards; and tire the other side, and in order to do that he must kck into touch. In the international match last Saturday Johnston, the English full-back, d-d not have a single kick charged down, although there were at least half a dozen occasions upon which he had to take the ball within five yards of the Welsh forwards. His plan, which Mr Stoop considered to be the corect one, was to turn round and have part of his body between himself and the forwards coming down upon him. , The full-back should always study the tactics of the opposing' stand-ff half, from whom the attacking movements nearly always originated. When playing against the wind he let him find touch every time, but when playing with it he should kick as far as he could, whether the ball went into touch or not, and then if the wind was at all strong he either went beyond the other full-back or the latter could,only put in a short kick in return.

In tackling it was not always adrisftbie for the full-back to make a dash at his man. The most difficult full-back to get past was the one who always kept in front of his man by shifting on both feet. It was advisable to make the wing three-quarter ; f pos.s'ble lu:n inwards instead of outwards. How To Use Pace. The most important thing for awing three-quarter to do was to keep his extra bit of pace in reserve. It did not matter how fast a man was if he was always travelling at the same pace he was certain to be tackled, and in this connection he instanced the case of L. C. Hull, the Oxford sprinter, as an even-time man, who yet was an exceptionally easy man to'tackle. Wing three-quarters should always follow up a forward rush.

The most important duty of a centre was to stra ghten out the line before he nassed. If running towards the touch-line he should swerve away from touch before giving the ball to the wing. There we're two kinds of wing three-quarters, the sprinter and the man who stopped and cut in. If he was a sprinter it was no use for the centre to give him the ball before making an opening, but the other men should be given it earlier. The ball should never be passed to a man in a worse position than the holder.

Mr Stoop had some useful maxims for young half-backs. The outside half, lie said, should always try to draw one of the opposing centres before getting r ;.d 0 f the ball. If playing with a slow wing it was no use kicking the hall across to him. Let the outside half do something different every time. When defending always get inside your man and never let the opposing stand-off half run round you. The great duty of the scrum half was to get the ball out as quickly as possible. Sometimes he could beat the wing forward by feinting, and this was most effectively done by turning his back on the scrum. The'man with tho ball should always be supoorted. The best way to use a star performer on your side, added Mr Stoop, was not to give him the ball. The visual plan was to feed him eont'nualiy and lie. generally had a pretty rough' time. If you had three internationals playing on vour three-quarter line the fourth man should be given all the work. Asked as to the advisability of a man passing in his own 25, Mr Stoop said that in his opinion that was the best time to naee—the opposing backs were concentrating on attack and a break through might lead to a score.

EULOGY OF N.Z. RL T GBY. Vancouver and the Pacific Coast have bidden an revoir to one of the -greatest Rugby fifteens of the present day—the New Zealand team which has been touring in British Columbia and California for the last 10 weeks (savs a writer in the 'Field'). Their wonderful record is: Matches played and won, 16: points gained, 608; points lost, 0. These extraordinary figures are due, not to any falling off in the standard of play on the Pacific Coast—indeed that standard has never been higher—but to the superlative excellence of our visitors. Last year a representative Australian 15 suffered three successive reverses in British Columbia, and several in California, and the New Zealand Selection Committee decided to Bend none but the ; r best players across the Pacific. The visit could not have come at a more opportune time for the cause of Rugby football in California, and especially in the two big Universities of Stanford and California.

The coaches and leading offic'als there, with the wisdom born of six years' knowledge, were of the opinion that they had reduced tlie gamp to such a science that it.began to lackiinterr r est. They considered that thev had constructed defences which uo living at : tack could break down. ..They wanted to "liven things up a bit," to. make the game more spectacular*for those spec : tatnrs who in summer time shrieked and howled and 1 yelled their jibes upon! the baseball grounds. The owlish concentrated experience of six years said then, "the field is overcrowded, our wonderful defences block with ease every avenue of attack, let us reduce j the teams from lo to 14 men a-side. First, however, a party of New! Zealand Rugby footballers we're to be entertained, young business men and mechanics from those distant isles, who attended no special "training tables," who had neither the intention to make their lives miserable by giving up their pleasures of life to add an extra inch to their stride or cubic centimetre to their lung capacity, nor were accompanied by an army of assistants, ranging from the head coach and masseur down to the humble water carrier. The matter must be dropped until these All Blacks had themselves put this impenetrable wall to the test. This these latter gentlemen immediately proceeded to do 5 and they demonstrated that the wall had not one weak point but a succession of them. They ran round it, over it, and through it. They reduced the opposing defence to a frazzle, the attack to ridicule; they certainly "livened things up" until our ! friends in the South very soon began to wail thejr 'had 20 men on tine fiw&' iwtwd of 14. "Ewy »ot* a picture,

every picture a score," was the way one Californian described a certain game, It is hardly likely that any change in the rules will now be •advocated by the Walter Camps of the Western United States of America. In British Columbia we knew what we were in for. Most of us had seen the All Blacks or South Africans in action ; we we.corned our cousins Lom New Zealand as brother footballers, as fellow-citizens of the Empire, from whom we hoped to learn much, and we trusted that their presence would help to strengthen the cause and bring new con verts. We were not disappointed. They played such a, game as none of Us have seen since our last visit to an "international;" and before the largest crowds which have ever attended a Rugby match in British Columbia. AVe only 'hope that they will come again. and soon. In all our matches the New Zealand line was only crossed once, the other three points being scored from a penalty goal. The Universities of Stanford and California invited Mr W. W. Hill, hon. secretary of the New South Wales R.F.U., to referee their annual match in San Francisco. He travelled the 0000 miles and back again for 90 minutes' work.