THE WORLD OF SPORT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1162, 24 June 1911, Page 12

THE WORLD OF SPORT.

football: —-♦——- I RUUBY. < .' ' fßr "ArJaTOBOLUS,] \ ''.'''.Fifty Thousand .Spectators." |; onlookers at the League. lii .match'., in Sydney, where New Zealand j.; ..wont down!. It is a tig figure, and it is :. more-it is "the writing on the wall." No / ono wants to say too much about it, but : there it is. As far : as Australia is concerned, Rugby has been weighed in the balance, and found wanting. .'Lately, in '~ our own Wellington Rugby, thero has :j ; • been a sort, of Teviyal which.one can only l ;.': hope'may last; but.it is far from being-. ,':' the scomplcto thing yet. And even if it /. were-—? Well, the preponderating influence of larger centres of population ;; -must tell in the.end. It is a fairly ;;■ : - ead topic, look at- it how you will. What ■-;' •say,'if we just, drop'it for the present? II .It is bound to keep coming up, with in-1 n f creasing assertiveness, as time goes on;

| '.Why Not Some Better Scrum? ;.. Attention has.been attracted this-week. 'j';' to a. new scrum tried by Southern, of : j which 'more anon, i Whatever be tho raer-. •: its. of this scrum!'the question-is: Why -do not those teams which are really . training,'experiment more? That,; the Si— 3—2. scrum is the only one is'cdm- ■ ..fflonly believed.- But. is it?.., Indeed.'.it is' . not, for the days are no doubt coming .when .the baleful "lock man" will h'avo' ?■: tft.S 0 .-. .'He is generally too big, ami often .«too rotund to do much in tho loose, and ...•'. his wonderful; "push". in, the' scrum' is /'mostly myth.' If ho has,to leave a..track '''.;' for the ball by keeping his feet apart, ;- it, is.difficult to:see whero the push comes ; (in. Aay sceptic on.thispoint has merely ';>; to. stand' 'up, spread his feet, and then >.; bend down and endeavour to push. : It ,V will:he,seen that'a" man fn such a posi•A.tion—and tho "lock" man is always in :', that position—could not push so much ..as a pack-of shadows. The writer, some ■ ■;'time, ago, received a photograph, of a .•': ■scrum.,.which had.been tried,in America v.' : with only five men in .it—a liollow\ wedge ■.j.' with one man iiri front and no lock. iThere >■ is nearly twice as "much push in in .;. Diif "seven. As to Southern's •■'- --present experiment, we can only wait, to Bee. It seemed to puzzle Petone last .....jveek, )mt .it may. not puzzle the next j'' team .they meet. .Still, originality is-such ! '$'\r3re:thing''thatyit is nlways welcome.

) JA("Small .Match; Was Boomed. ;: ... A .mistaken idea somehow gained cur- ." rency about tho match between. St. .James .. and Old Boys, at the Park on Saturday— ■ •■ that it was likely to.prove a struggle of \ Homeric vigour and'that no man could , foretell the outcome. How any such no--:'tion eanie to be harboured'it is-impos- ■ Bible.''.to .say. Possibly it was generated j.' at ,the shrine of'th& great idol "gate," ■■j. Colour is lent to' ; a;suspicion of this kind ■ ' by.-.the fact that';tho mistake appeared •j: full-blown in the ; announcements of the .; match by that gifted body, the Welling- ■ ton Kngby Union. On second thoughts ; no one will suspect thp; Eugby Union of . puffing a team: in order to get a "gate." The'local'governors" of football are not .; by way of being subtle, tacticians. No doubt they and some portion of the -foot-' ! ball; public were, carried away by ah un■j Iwise'iJuthusiasm.MjTheso optimists wanted Tito seq a good .'game, and therefore ;they '; prophesied: that it'would come to pass. : . That the error here noticed obtained ' pretty general-acceptance-is certain. A big crowd assembled. It was duo to two :j things: V(l) The .'fast, matches that! had \ gone before; (2hsh'e;want of anywhere! eisoi \ to. put in the 'Saturday. j ' But a little of thia praiseworthy enthusiasm transferred to the field would have improved matters immensely. There -.- were really no grounds for.- anticipating a meteoric battle. Out of nine games played this season, Old • Boys have won only one;- The two teams below them on , the championship ladder—Wellington and Victoria College—havo,not so much as a singlo victory to bless themselves with. St. James stand;at tho upper ■ end of \ things' • with an excellent chance of re- ; -maining there. That a. team so placed ; should obtain atviotory over a downward • ; -lending combination like Old 'Boys is : ! only to .be expected. It would be .very much, to its discredit if the event turned any other way.

A Somewhat Aimless Battering, Tho game took' a perfectly natural turn. St. James, - though not exactly ; tuned un to concert pitch, were never once extended. Old Boys played as losers from. ! tho kick-off. Tiey managed to keep the . ' 'score down to fairly modest dimensions, and they had- not, at any- time, an earthly chance of doing, anything more '' useful. At most 1 times they were engaged in staving off a wearing attack as best they could, and by no means brilliantly. St. James conducted tlip attack on somewhat free and easy lines. Often there was 'a'..lack of 'cohesion between the vanguard ' and the backs.in rear. The forwards ' heading a rush were usually fairly well ■ backed.up, but sometimes .the onset was J • ragged.' At 'their worst the St. James-■[ •'■ forwards did infinitely better work than J . ..their opponents.... The Old Boys' vanguard } scattered on the slightest provocation, or none at all, and the fault was as evident > when they attempted a counter-stroke as ' when they were lighting for the safety of ;. their, own home-line. • ' •f ?The\gamo was not rich in interesting :' ■movements. Although St. James main- i tained a general ascendancy, and usually i had Old Boys well on their own sido of i '; half-way, the play was disjointed and ill- j .'ordered. There was a striking lack of i originality and initiative even on the part '. • of- tho attackers. ; Hekita, playing for St. j James, on the wing, was jammed time { after time on tho same old side-lino, at j just about the same spot near tho corner, j until he seemed to have contracted a ' habit. Against stronger opponents a bit ; of unoriginal repetition like this would l have been dangerous. The tries scored -] in the closing minutes of the game, by i Cook and Hekita respectively, wero do. I tache'd features of a contest whk.* in i the main had consisted of a somewhat I aimless battering by a strong team of - one that was palpably inferior. I The deeds of 'individual players who figured in this mediocre contest do not, . perhaps, very much matter, for tho background was poor, and even faint detail ' .stood out from it in contract. Among the Old Boys' backs who did good work for their team, Grace and Bernard wero j • prominent, and Thompson also' was fail ly , sound in defence. Dawson failed to 6avo J once or twice in moments of emergency, J •but he made a dash or two good enough to have ended in. scoring had ho been i capably supported. Good Une-kicking, by J Grace, earned a lot of ground for his "sido when they needed it badly. The St. James backs were not at their best, and { it 'was on the forwards that the weight ' •of work fell. Among tho backs, Cook i and Hekita were each rewarded, in ob- J taining a score, for a series of fruitless • assaults tirelessly maintained. Cook, in addition, had a lcadin* part in stopping the few really purposeful mshes attempted I by Old Boys. : The Representative Match. j That Wellington representatives were in ( many respects fortunate to mo- was tho , opinion held by not a few after tho Wei-. .' lington-Marlhorough Rugby football match j at Athletic Park on Thursday afternoon. , Though the weather did not promise well ] on Wednesday evening, it proved all that , could be desired on tho day of tho match, , and a good drying wind left the park in , satisfactory order, perhaps a trillo slip- ( nery. On account of tho largo number \ of visitors that were in the city in con- j nection with the Coronation celebrations, j there was a capital attendance, and, tak- , jng a line through the gate receipts, it is j estimated that well over GOOO persons wero , present. His iixcellcncy the Governor j wns nil interested spectator. _ 1 Tho Wellington team had sustained a good many changes sine© it was first se- ] looted, !he most serious loss being that < of P. Roberts, who was unablo to play ' owing It) an injured hand. James Ryan i was aim unable to play. The vacancies j were filled by tho inclusion of Bradley,]

.: — ►- ; ' » WEEKLY RECORD OF SPO RTS AND OTHER PASTIMES,

The Meeting of Oriental arid Melrose. 'Those w'lo think'that Oriental will head tlur'championship ladder this season must have had their good'opinion 1 ofjtho Black and Whites disturbed in the early portion of last Saturday's game -With -Melrose. Tho Oriental forwards have-not at any stago of tho season appeared to contain an overdose of internationals, and in their last two matches they have shown poorly against Southern and Melrose. The Oriental backs, however, are always dangerous. Mntheson's attack lacks sting, and Murdock doesn't appear to be very fiery, but the backs, taken as a whole, and as- a system, are liable to .beat any opposition, at any moment./Melrose have improved" since .they opened -the season with a, mother i,of a hiding from Ponckc. The backs, however, have not improved at the same rate.: as the ./forwards. . Pooley is about thp only one- who shows form which is above average.

and Tilyard. JlofStt, who injured his leg last Saturday, was playing among the forwards, but did not show anything like Ins best form. The Marlborough team was tho same as published. Throughout, (ho game was fast, and interesting and, in tho second spell, it became quite exciting. In the first half, however, play was so much in favour of Wellington that one could not have forecasted the result, but.in the second half the superior condition, and. tactics of the visitors' forwards began, to tell and, as they set out to make upipoints, tho gamo resolved itself into-a stern struggle with ■tho Wellington backs busily defending their line against tho onslaught, of the Marlborough forwards, who kept sweeping down the field like ari avalanche. It was Rugby bright enough for tho majority of the. spectators and when, in the last ten minutes, it was seen that one score might make, tbo Marlborough men victors, great interest was arouso'd. The j one- score never came, the local defence proving sound. Each side scored the same "number of tries, but tho Wellington, team managed to kick _ more goals, Marlborough's usually safo. kick (O'Brien) having an off-iTay. M'Lpod, who captained the Winuing team, contrived to. make a fast' back game, and his opponent, Manning, in the second spell that his own scoring,, three-quarters were not quite equal to tho opposition, sent the forwards in to do the work and with excellent result,- though it did not bring ■about, victory.

', ,Tho. Wellington B-New Zealand Univers- • ity match (played as a "c'urtam-rniM'r" to tho bigger fixture) is not deserviag of any comment, the B team simply overwhelming tho 'Varsity men. Brosnan, ■ playing for the latter team,, injured his wrist'and- had to retire' at half-time. Petone's Win. on'the Post Southern's good fight against Petono last Saturday was ono that they may justly feel proud of, even if they should never be so successful again, by the way. It was- thought, and, indeed, frankly stated by most people at Petone," that it was not a question of the Blues winning, but just a matter of points. This.idea was knocked' to pieces when Southern (with six forwards packing 3—2—l, and an extra back) maintained the attack, till the last ten minutes. Petone then came back to their "St. James form," and very soon settled the issue. ' Southern had a decided advantage in the-3—2—l scrum. They got possession eight times out.of ten, and always had an extra back to . assist them in their passing. Although they . were pushed many times by tho heavier seven, it really did no harm,.as the ball was always got away before the Petone "push" began to tell. Petone's half-back, Nunn, was in some measure responsible for the trouble which overtook his side. His fielding, gathering, and passing were all faulty. When Ramsden went in to half, the difference was very marked. Bradley was the best back on ' the Southern side. His tactics throughout were nippy and clever, and the only thing which he did not display . was pace. ■ Houlihan (2), Campbell, and Cunningham worked very hard all through, and were responsible for many forward rushes. James Kyan, although a little selfish, was Petone's' "star," with M'Kenzio and Ramsden good seconds. Aston was fast, and always in the right place at the right time. M'Farlano was off his goallucking, but he made this deficiency good in his general work. Bent is Petone's best line-out main. The Petone backs wero to be ■ rearranged for tho match against Oriental, but this will probably be upset, owinir to' the-, 4 death of--Mr.. John Ryan, brother to- tho' 'well-Known' -members of tho Petono team. " ''•'•' ,•■■;'