ANGLO-COLONIAL FOOTBALL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 74, 27 March 1912, Page 3

ANGLO-COLONIAL FOOTBALL.

!N0 INVITATION TO NEW; ZEALAND. 'AUSTRALASIAN CRITICISM. [raon> ovs. own coebispondxnt.] LONDON, 16th February. The comniilteo of the English Rugby Union considered on Saturday the extending of an invitation to an oversea combination to visit England during tho next season hero. It was unanimously decided to send a cable to South Africa, conveying an invitation for 1912-3. "H is well known," says a writer , in tho Athletic News, "that New Zealand were anxious to be favoured, but it was thought that for all concerned a visit from the South Africanß would bo preferable." It was emphatically decided that futuro teams must como to England on a now financial basis, namely, that the English Union, guaranteeing, the ex-, penses of the tour, should retain for itself the profite, so that "there will be no despatch, of bullion at the end of the trip." AUSTRALASIAN NORTHERN UNIONS. The Australasian Northern Union team, which comprised several New Zealanders, loaves England this week with something of a sore head. The tour was extended in the hope that the extra matches would add~to the profits, and swell the bonus which would be available on arrival at Sydney, but the extension had the opposite effect, and even swallowed up tho profite already accrued. The weather was very bad, and the charge of a shilling at the gate deterred the artisans of the North from attending in each, force as waa expected. BRITISH FAIR PLAY. It is unpleasant to find this team of Australasians, like their predecessors from Australia and New Zealand, returning homo with a nasty impression of British sportsmanship. One of the managers, Mr. J. Qumlan, tells an interviewer that he has been keenly disappointed with the crowds' ideas of sport. "All that their team does is right. If v/o got the upper hand it was wrong, and our success was due to our illegal Lactics. Generally, I have found them cheer only their own men, and I formed the opinion that on the majority of Northern Union fields the, visitors do not count with the average partisan. I cannot say that 1 have seen .overmuch of British fair play at our matches. It wae wonderful to eeo how quickly the crowd detected our faults. Similar faults on their own bide they would condone.'" C. M'Kivat, a veteran in these tours, says : "1 really think on some of your grounds the crowds are much worse than any we have in Australia. Ycu take your defeats here too seriously." P. A. M'Cue looks Torward yearningly to tho land of perpetual sunshine, "where the football public love to see a good game, vnd aro ever ready to applaud good play, whether it be by the home team or the visitors." I George Gillett, ' the New Zealander, also thinks "the avorago club ex'owd in the North are pai'ticularly 'pointed* in their support, and aro much more onesided than the supporteifl in New Zealand. Thi6 feature of the tour has grcr.tly impressed itself upon me. The success of his own team is received willi tremendous applause. When the visitors score the points are greeted with shrieking silence."