COACH AS PLAYER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19291, 1 April 1926, Page 13

COACH AS PLAYER.

PLUNKET SHIELD CRICKET. THE AUCKLAND PROPOSAL. SUPPORT FROM CANTERBURY. [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. Tho Auckland Cricket Association, which is arranging for tho engagement for three successive seasons at least, of tho best all-round English professional player-coach it can secure, wrote to tho Canterbury Cricket Association asking it to consider tho advisability of making a similar arrangement and of supporting the amendment of the Plnnket Shield rulos to permit of such coaches taking part in the matches as long as New Zealand cricket is appreciably weaker than that of England and Australia. Tho letter was considered at a meeting of the Canterbury Association and the scheme was approved, although the association could not see its way to engago an English professional at present. Members generally considered that tho inclusion of player-coaches would bo a help to cricket and that tho suggestion that tho Plunket Shield rulos should bo altered should bo agreed to. It was suggested that it might be as cheap to obtain a coach from Australia but Mr. R. C. Blunt considered that Australians would not be as suitable as English professional cricketers. Tho English seasons, too, would be more suitable for co-operation with New Zealand than tho Australian. Mr. W. Simpson said if an English coach wero to be imported it would be necessary to drop the present coaching of younger playors and the ground bowling scheme as the association's finances would not stand the cost of all three. Tho association decided to reply that at proseut it had a coach for younger players and was trying out a scheme of ground bowlers and was therefore not prepared to consider the question of bringing a professional coach from England, but that it was quite prepared to agree to tho alteration of tho Plunket Shield rules to allow an English coach to play in shield matches without residential qualification.