FOOTBALL.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, 11 April 1908, Page 5

FOOTBALL.

NOIES BY “THE CYNIC.”

The annual seven a-side football tournament at Eltbam takes place on Easter Monday. Entries for the tournament close to-night. It is reported that H. A. Wilson intends throwing in his lot with the Manaia Club this season, and is doing some hard training. E. E. Booth, a -member of the famous All-Black-combination, ■is to play for Newtown team this season.

. The following query was sent to the Sydney Referee by a resident of South Sydney: “Did the Maori ,teams that visited England in 1888 and 1889 go as professionals or amateurs?” The reply was that the'Maori team played as amateurs, and that the English Union practically had control of the finances.

The following paragraph, taken from Sporting Life, will interest New Zealand Rugby enthusiasts: “The great feature of the match between Leicester and Swansea was the reappearance of Dr E. T. Morgan, the most popular -personality in Welsh football, and by far the finest wing three-quarter Wales lias ever produced. Alikougk a marked man throughout, Dr Morgan showed that he has lost none of his old powers during his temporary retirement. He ran with all his old -grace and pace, although, of course, Signs of <his lack of practice were in evidence in -his passing.*’ This famous three-quarter-back formed one of the last. British team that visited New Zealand.- .

It is reported'by the Athletic News that- Mr G. Rowland Hill, ex-President of the Metropolitan Rugby Uniofl (London), is at present in a very indifferent state of health. Many old New Zealand footballers will remember that it was Mr . Hill who refereed in the famous match the Maori team played against England during their 1888-9 tour. He gave.more than one decision that did not please the members of the native team, three of their number leaving the, field as a protest against his decision. ; The late T. R. Ellison, who was a.member of that team, in a book entitled “The Art of Rugby Football,” commenting on the match, wrote: “The Englishmen should never have won the game, but for three eqrly and distinctly erroneous of the referee, Mr G. Rowland Hill. The first was awarding a try to England after the ball had been made dead by W. Wai’brlck ; the second awarding another try to England after they had deliberately ceased mauling With H. Lee, and the latter had forced down. Both forces were the result of two distinctly bad, pieces of play on the part of the English team, namely, two huge punts over the visitors’ goal line. In the first instance, Warbrick started' to run the ball out, but, finding that some of the English forwards were within his goal line, touched, down, but immediately lost possession of the ball, upon which the Englishmen dropped and claimed a try, which the referee allowed. In the second, Lee failed to take the ball cleanly, and put a number of off-side Britishers on-side, who pounced on him and commenced to maul him. Lee, however, freed himself and forced down. As the. colonials were going back to re-commence play they were told that Lee’s force-down had been awarded a try to England.” The annual report of the New South Wales Rugby Union stated that the Council deprecated the fact that three matches had been played between teams of Sydney players and a New Zealand professional team in August. As m consequence the players who had taken part were, after an enquiry held by the metropolitan branch, expelled from the union.

Among the proposed new !aw§ to be considered at the New Zealand Referees’ Conference at Auckland are the following:— If an opponent secures the ball from a free-kick taken behind their goalline by/the defending side, and puts it down -in their in-goal, a 1 try must .be awarded, “even though the hall has not crossed the goal line.” In the event of a kicker kicking from his own in-goal and one of his side being penalised for off-side, the opposing side electing to take a scrum, “such scrum shall take place five yards from the goal line, opposite to the spot from which it was last played.” # ln the event of a" player marking in his own in-goal— say a yard from the dead ball line —and his opponents line up to the mark and charge the kick down over the dead ball line “the ball becomes dead.”