FOOTBALL.

NZ Truth, Issue 123, 26 October 1907, Page 3

FOOTBALL.

!(By "Pakeha."* It is not improbable that Colrnan, the Taranaki and New Zealand half, will be m Auckland next season, m which event he will be found m the ranks of the Ponsonby Club. . Dive, whose parents reside m the Grafton district, may also be m Auckland next winter. Eckhold, the Otago representative footballer and- cricketer, is reported to he about to take up his residence m Invercargill. While nothing has yet been settled about a successor to P. C. Coles, the old Oxford University captain, who resigned the secretaryship of the English Rugby Union, it is now considered likely that E. B. Holmes, of the Midland Counties Union, will be offered the post, for which George Harnett, the well-known referee, of Kent, has not sent m an application. Writing of the New Zealand tour by a British combination next season, Hamish Stuart says :— "The tour promises to be a most enjoyable one. Moreover, 'the chance of being asked' will make most men fit and play their very hardest during the coming season. Indeed, I know at least one famous forward who would probably have retired on his laurels — young as he is — "but for the prospect of a trip to Australasia. It be a matter for regret, therefore; if circumstances compel the- Union to , abandon the tour. Fortunately, we can. always rely upon the South Africans. Both at cricket and at foothall the South Africans are above reproach, not merely m point of amateurism but of play. They play both games m the proper spirit, and are almost quixotic m theif fairness." The old sore still manifests itself with .Hamish, and he can't, let the opportunity go by without getting m. a nasty one at the New Zealanders' expense. '•'Though I have no desire to play the part of a pessimistic prophet," I says Hamish Stuart, m the "Daily Chronicle," "there is no use shutting the- eye to the fact that the airrival of a professional side from New Zealand may raise such suspicions that all the Unions will decline to be consenting parties to the nrojected tour m the. island colony this year. I write without having sounded any of the . officials of the four unions, but it may he taken for granted that the Scottish lUvrt Irish unions Will forbid their players to | take part m the tour if they have any reason to believe that New Zealand Rtffhv is m a»v way tainted by professionalism.'-' But why ■Should the tallows Hajnisjt bother

himself over a small' matter like this when our Rugby destinies are m the hands of that noble band of which "Gaily*' and Wylie are such glittering lights. Many people haVe told me says q B. Fry) that Rugby always strikes them as a much more dangerous game than Association. It is and it' is not. Neither is really dangerous m the nure meaning of the term. In Rugby there are small injuries received, such as broken fingers, twisted: knees, and cut faces. The go-ahead Rugby forward sometimes looks rather like a man just [home from a heavy set to m the old style with bare 'uns. But what seems so risky to the educated foreigner, collaring an opponent who lis going at full speed, and falling on | the ball before the rush of half-a-dozen forwards, is not nearly so dangerous as it looks. In Association, small accidents, sprains, and contusions are less common than m Rugby.> but when an accident does happen m Association, one worth talking about, it is generally of a kind more likely to incapacitate the player. A letter from the New Zealand Football Association was received by the New Zealand Cricket Council at its meeting on Saturday, suggesting that m future English cricket teams visiting the the colony might m the main be composed of men who were also Association football players. A series of matches might then with profit be arranged at the end of the cricket tour. The letter was received.