THE NEW ZEALAND TEAM.

Evening Star, Issue 10341, 15 June 1897, Page 2

THE NEW ZEALAND TEAM.

[Special to the Stab.] WELLINGTON, June 15. To the list of players unable to accompany the New Zealand team to Australia is now to be added Tom Pauling, of the Athletic Club of this city, and though doubts were expressed when the team were selected that Pauling would not obtain the necessary leave from the Defence Department, it was anticipated that pressure would be brought to bear on those in authority to secure the requisite leave; but apparently these steps have met with no success. Pauling’s exclusion is a most serious loss to the forward division and the team in general. He is a stalwart artilleryman, and he has been going great guns in matches this season. He shares with Caiuan the honor of being the best forward in Wellington, if net in the colony. A giant in the scrum, great ou the line-out, brilliant in the loose, and a fine place-kick, his absence will be greatly missed, and all footballers deplore the reasons for his not going With the team. An appointment to fill the vacancy is now under consideration, and the names of Kelly (Hawke's Bay) and Murray (of Auckland) are freely canvassed, but it is probable that a Wairarapa representative will be the fortunate man. Wairarapa’a great struggle with Taranaki on Saturday and its result caused much comment in football circles in Wellington, and the local players are now more sanguine of putting down the Northern cracks tomorrow. Pauling’s defection makes the fourth since the team was originally chosen—via., Young (Wellington), Kerr (Canterbury), O’Dowda (Taranaki), and Pauling (Wellington).