FOOTBALL.

Evening Star, Issue 12606, 11 September 1905, Page 7

FOOTBALL.

A DRAWN GAME.

Baturday was practically tie first oce%son tnis year on which the local inert were called upon to ptay fj» game in really bad. weather. Wit& perhaps one exception Ws season all the matches nave been played on dry grounds, and it was unfortunate for the last fixture of the year the* the element* should have been of such a nature as to abaohltety destroy all hope of a good game. A ihick rajn aet in, accompanied py ft strong wind, and the Caledonian Ground could not have been in a worse condition when tf» teams took the field at three o'clock on Satarday afternoon. It was heavy and slippery, and the players in consequence found it extremely difficult to keep their feet. The ball, too, became very greasy, and naturally back play was out of the question. The game, as was to be expected, was chiefly confined' to the forwards, and in this department Wellington excelled themselves. Tbey had all the best of the scrum work, and played with more dash than their opponents in the loose. The backs cm both sides handled the wet ball remarkably well, and kicked with judgment throughout. On a dry ground the Otago rearguard would probably have shown out to better advantage than their opponerts, whose backs are not regarded as a strong attacking team. Wellington, however, had the, forwards. . The Blacks (bad the advantage of havmg tho rain and wind at their backs to start off with, and when half-time was cabed without them having scored the Otago supporters were jubilant. But the hard taskset the home team in the first spell took a lot out of them, and the Wellington forwards playing one of their best games in the second half, and the backs taking the ball cleanly, kept an effective check on tho Blues' attack. Both sides repeatedly went near scoring, and, taking the play on the day, a draw, neither side scoring, was a satisfactory ending to a somewhat trying The play itself does not call for a description ft would be a waste of space to describe all the incidents some of them amusing—that happened. As the game went it would have required a good deal of luck for either ado to have scored. When playing with the wind first Wellington and then Otago tried potting, placekicking, dribbling, kicking high arid following up, and passing (a most unsuitable style of play to adopt), but it was aU of no avail The visitors did not make sufficient use of the wind in the first spell, and had their forwards in the first half got in some of the dashing combined rushes •which were a feature of their play in tne second half, they might have .had a better result to show. Otago seldom got the ball in the scrum, but when the backs did manage to get it they too often attempted passing rushes, which invariably ended in ground and chances being lost. Towards the end Bennet and Adams tried potting, but their attempts were failures. It was a poor game to wutcb, the only points worthy of note in it being the forward work of the visitor? and the sure fielding of the backs of both teams. Towards the close of the contest the referee bad occasion to speak to a burly Wellington forward' who so far forgot himself as °to make use of his fists. The incident happened on a line-out in the visitors' twenty-five, where the player in question deliberately hit out at an opponent, and then assumed an attitude as if he were about to strike again. The crowd hooted, and it was fully expected that the player would have been ordered off, but the referee simply spoke to him. Had the referee taken the extreme course, which was undoubtedly the proper one under the circumstances, ho would have only been fulfilling his duty, and at the some time have earned the support of all true lovers of clean football. In Wellington last year an Otago forward was ordered off for a very trifling offence compared with this one, and on a previous occasion in tho some city another Otago forward suffered severely for a similar offence to the one committed on Saturday. Fortunately, occurrences of this kind are rare in representative football, and it seems all tho more strange that the instances of foul play referred to should have all occurred in games between Otago and Wellington. The two full-backs (G. Spencer, Wellington, and Borrie, Otago) were kept very busy throughout the game. While both made mistakes, they came through, a trying ordeal with credit. Eckhold, the Otago fiveeighth, seemed to do more work than any other back, while Driscoll (Wellington) was the best forward on the ground. The two front rankers on the visitors' side proved themselves worthy substitutes for Dodd and Watkins. Hardham and Spencer (Wellington) and Porteouß and M'lntyre (Otago) played well among the forwards. Mr R. Barry, of Christchurch, had control of the game.