The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 1906. THE VICTORIOUS FOOTBALLERS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13946, 1 January 1906, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 1906. THE VICTORIOUS FOOTBALLERS.

The New Zealand , foot-ball team added another win to its list on Saturday, defeating Swansea by tlie narrow margin of one point, and so concluded the.official games of the tour. Any other matches that may be played will be for exhibition pur poses only. The French match has apparently been arranged to give the players a trip to Paris, and the object of the suggested match against Great Britain is to augment the Queen’s Fund for.the unemployed. The New Zealanders themselves would he glad -enough to play the strongest team available from the Home countries, but no combined team from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales could take the field at a week’s notice ,with any prospect of success -against- the colonials if they were playing at the .top of their form. We hope that tno combined game will be played, however, so that the New Zealanders may feel that they have helped forward some charitable movement in the Motherland. The tour opened sensationally, nearly four months ago, with the defeat ot the southern counties by , forty and fifty points. Meeting the county clubs at the very beginning of the season, the New Zealanders made good use of their superior condition and skill and very soon compiled a remarkable score. It seems to have been considered a moral victory for the Englishmen if at any time they succeeded in keeping the tale of points in a match below twenty. After playing two and sometimes three matches a week for twelve weeks, the colonials had to meet the strongest of the national teams. Scotland, Ireland and England were defeated in turn, but the Welsh national team succeeded against them by a single try to nothing. The Welsh county clubs have since given them hard games, hut the tour has concluded with the single defeat. There'have been abundant signs of late of a flagging of the team’s zeal. No body of men could play football continuously twice or three times a week for fifteen weeks, travelling muck between the games, without losing the keen edge of enthusiasm. The Welsh games have therefore been scarcely a fair test of the team’s powers, but there is really no need to find excuses for the colonials. To have won thirty-one out of thirty-two games, scoring 829 points while their opponents could score hut i 39 is surely proof enough of the New Zealanders’ skill. The Results of the Welsh matches suggest that Rugby football is at rather a low ebb in England. Tlie Association game seems to have absorbed most of the popular enthusiasm, but no doubt the sensational tour of the colonial team will .give a great impetus to the passing game. We oa-nnot follow the London journals in ascribing any special advantages of race to the New Zealanders. At least [ we should hesitate to deduce tlie ohar- ! act eristics of 900,000 people from those of twenty-eight young men chosen for their sKll as footballers. These same

young men, however, have contrived to give their colony a magnificent advertisement. Their great victories over their opponents on the field induced the football reporters of the half-penny journals to endow them with superhuman qualities, and everyone interests ed in held sports naturally wanted to knew something about the men and their native country. At the same time wo disapprove entirely of the suggestion, said to be under consideration by the Cabinet, that the team should be given a holiday trip to America at the expense of the State. There is room for a certain amount of dignity in the government of a British colony, but apart from that aspect of the question, it would be a shocking precedent to establish. The Government has taken a kindly Merest in the tour wo know, and no one has objected to its paternal attitude, but the management of the tour itself may very well bo left to the New Zealand Rugby Union. The team will receive a warm welcome when it returns to the colony, and indeed it deserves to be congratulated on its remarkable success. W e do, as a matter of fact, develop in New Zealand the fine physique and the quickness in the open that go to make good footballers. Patience and caution, combined with a good eye, a quick wrist and a steady nerve, the qualities that make the cricketer, seem to thrive more in Australia, hut we do not doubt that a physically sound race like the New Zealanders could succeed in cricket also if it would give close attention to the summer game. These games are not without their value as an index, to character. The young men of the nation possess plenty of self-reliance and both physical and mental strength. They lack, perhaps, the patience and intellectual solidity upon which ihe Germans are building greatness, and on the other hand they lack the extreme nervous energy of the Americans. But so far as the playing fields of the colony are a guide, our young men must be said to possess in a remarkable degree the qualities that are traditionally associated with the British race, and perhaps the London newspapers were not altogether astray when they regarded our footballers as typical New Zealanders.