BATH-TUB TEST PROVES DIFFICULT FOR FOOTBALL KICKERS

Evening Star, Issue 26153, 15 July 1947, Page 8

BATH-TUB TEST PROVES DIFFICULT FOR FOOTBALL KICKERS

(From (J. ill. .Mi.'iit.ipla\, N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.) . SYDNEY, July 14. Is there a football player in Australia or New Zealand who can guarantee to land a Rugby ball in a bath tub from a distance of 50 yards? This question lias been exercising the minds and boots of enthusiasts in Victoria and New South AValos ever since the early matches of the recent All Black tour. In doing so, it lias helped to enrich several deserving charities. Three codes of football flourish in Australia using the Rugby ball. Of these, Union fills a compartively minor role, being confined practically to New South Wales' and Queensland.. League has a larger and wider following. The enthusiasm of the Victorian public, however, has been captured by an ingenious and spectacular invention known as “ Australian Rules.” This game places emphasis on kicking for control and distance, and fabulous stories are told by devptees concerning the exploits of their favourite teams. One of the best of these fables reached the dignity of print when the columnist Don Whitington, himself an Australian (Rules follower, attended the first match between New South Wales and the All Blacks.

In a light-hearted article in which he. compared Union unfavourably with Australian (Rules, he stated that there were quite a few players in Melbourne who could land a ball on a sixpence at 60 yards. In the uproar that followed Whitington found it necessary to claim literary license, to shorten the. distance to 50 yards, and enlarge the sixpence to a bath tub measuring three feet in diameter. Even then the conditions had to be amended before Australian (Rules players would take up the gambit. After much secret practice in Melbourne, it was decided that once out of four shots would do, that a tub would be fastened six feet high on a goal post with the opening facing the kicker, and that in these circumstances the hall merely had to hit the bottom of the tub.

At a series of charity carnivals in Victoria and New South Wales the cream of Australian Rules talent tried its boot. In Melbourne 25,000 people watched seven aspirants score a complete blank. They blamed the gusty wind and the greasy ball, but it was significant that the much-touted Fred Fanning, who had agreed .to carry Whitington’s colours, failed to turn out. At Broken Hj 11 J. Gillespie was the only one to score. At Trumper Park, Sydney, yesterday 25 Australian Rules players entered a similar contest. Of them, one alone hit the bottom of the tub,‘ The relative accuracy of Australian Rules nnd Rugby Union players is still unknown as the Union men prudently kept out of the ■contest. Union supporters consider, however, that the result lias brought a merciful death to the legend of the superior accuracy of Australian Rules men. It is probable that this opinion' is shared by thei majority of the thousands of Australians who witnessed Bob Scott s precision bombing of the area above the Australian crossbar. .