Football.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8146, 21 November 1905, Page 6

Football.

New Zealanders on Tour

(By Electric Telegraph-Copyright). (Per Press Asyociation.)

SYDNEY, Nov. 20,

English newspapers commenting on the football match are interesting. The Daily Mail, on the Northumberland match, says that the defeat was mitigated by the reflection that thay did better than they expected. " The New Zealanders do not shine so brightly under the stormy weather conditions which prevailed. Their scientific methods are so well thought out and so mathematically correct that such weather upsets the perfect working of their machinery. If the New Zealanders are fated to receive a beating at all it will probably happen when the machinery gets blown out of order and when, their opponents, trusting more to good luck than to good combination, take advantage of the slements to secure an unorthodox victory. Therefore, all to whom the prestige of British Bngby is dear will probably pray for dirty weather for the international matohes." The paper pays a high tribute to the visitors' camaraderie, absence of jealousy and selfishness, to which is due their homogeneity on the field. Even the New Zealanders themselves were surprised at the brilliancy displayed by their brilliant little fiveeights, Hunter, who five times, getting the ball from the scrum, wriggled his way through almost a solid phalanx of opponents, all the time scarcely deviating from a straight line. A more meteoric display would be inconceivable.

Commenting on the Gloucester match, the Daily Mail says that for a time the Gloucestershire forwards nonplussed the visitors by their low tackling. The colonials seemed surprised that their opponents should have the impudence to attempt to put the only proper method into force against their experi■ence with the London and northern teams which had led them to imagine that the high tackle was the only method adopted in thts country. The game was a triumph of mind plus matter, over pluck and grit minus physique and originality of conception. ■The Gloucester men worked twice as hard as the New Zealanders, but lacked their combination and method. Their tackling was superb and their pluck against the clever and physically stronger team was magnificent. Wallace, the Admiral Crichton of the New Zealand team, gave a really glorious display at wing three quarter. His kicking and fielding is always abovs reproach, but it was left for the Gloucester match to bring out to the full his wonderful powers of attack.