FOOTBALL.

NZ Truth, Issue 128, 30 November 1907, Page 3

FOOTBALL.

[(By "Pakeha,",)'

!A ! Petone correspondent says some nasty and unprintable things about the mismanaging committee of the New Zealand Rugby > Union relative to its administration of Rugby throughout the Dominion. Our suburban friend reckons that, on their past dc-mgs,, the Wylie-G-ally crowd couldn't properly manage a hennery establishment. It would, he says, ba interesting to secure a return ofi the amount personally expended by each individual towards the- benefit of the game. "It strikes me," he adds, "that they have taken lots more out of the game than what they have expended. As long as they and their friends get a free pass to the big Rugby matches they think they have done strokes for the game." My correspondent condemns this free pass business, which, m his opinion, is only brought into requisition m

order to give Wylie and has coirleagues a chance to grovel to some snob a little higher up on the social rung of the ladder whose one mission m life is the acquisition of ''stiffs" and a desire to be mat a cheap guzzle. I don't agree with my, colleague m his sweeping denunciation of the Whole of the committeemen, though I dp most emphatically! say that much of .what he asserts is i perfectly true as regards certain,inembers of the crowd. "Bumper" Wright has been treating the Northern Unionists to plenty, of treacle and honey. Interviewed by a "Lloyd's" representative after the match played between Leeds and Hunslet, the captain expressed himself as highly delighted with the play shown. "It beats the Rugby game out of sight," he enthusiastically exclaimed, "though it was the old game we played m Australia and Ceylon." He expressed approval of the Northern Union rules m regard to kicking into touch,. "It just suits our men," he said. "There is no de- ( lay, and we are for a fast game,' and what we want is fast and open play, and it is what you are all the 'more likely to get when you have the old method of finding touch straight from the field of play rendered no longer possible. We are per-' fectly satisfied with the whole of the rules, and I consider they improve the game immensely. I might add that we are particularly delighted that the wing forwards are abolished. They were a serious blemish on the whole gam e . " Gee whizz . "Bumper's" condemnation of the winger is too absolutely funny for words. Jack Henrys, who played wing forward for the Wellington Football Club last season, has been offered a handsome remuneration if he will throw m his lot with the professional ranks 'm New South Wales;, but he has not as yet given a definite answer to the offer. It shows, however, that the Australia.n professionals are not going to let anything stand m the way of their securing "the best men.

Writes the"Football Evening News" anent the initial performances of the professional All Blacks :— "Are they as good as the team of 1995-6 9 That is the question everyone has been asking, and it is a 'question that will never be answered. The difference of playing under Northern Union rules is so great,, and necessitates such a reorganisation of the whole methods and practice of a side that there is no basis of comparison. We all remember the famous scrum formations of the team captained biy Gallagher ; how scientific it was, _how it utilised the mechanical principle of the Parallelogram of forces, and how admirably it was adapted to getting the ball out to the half . Well, the elimination of two players, as required by the Northern Union rule of playing thirteen a-side, plays the deuce with the scrum. The Colonials started With five forwards, as against six, but presently found it necessary to put another man in 'the scrum."