FOOTBALL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19315, 30 October 1924, Page 5

FOOTBALL.

THE BRITISH, TEAM IN SOUTH AFRICA. UNPLEASANT INCIDENTS IN THE FINAL TEST. The British team which recently toured South Africa incurred sharp criticism for tho play of some of its members in the fourth test, which it lost by 16 points to 9. “J.N.1.,” who wrote the report of the match in the Cape Times, says;— “There was a period in the second half of tho test match at Newlands when Britain looked as though she might save the game. I would have been extremely sorry had this happened, and so would all fair lovers of sport. In tho worst of us there is always a fear that unless we play tho game in life misfortune at sorno time or another will come into our lives, and so in sport we have a certain feeling within us that if we play fair, no matter what the other team may do, no matter how it may take advantage, reward will follow. Had Britain played well enough to win on Saturday I should have felt that, after all, fair play in sport does not bring its just reward, and, further, one would have neon inclined to become a discijilo of the principle that honesty after all is not the best policy, “Had Britain managed to win on Saturday I should almost have become one of those persons who assert that it is best to be in with the devil than out. “Had South Africa not played half as well she would still have deserved to triumph, not entirely because of her*superiority in the art of playing Rugby, but because certain Britons—and I am sorry to have to say it—seemed to forget that fair and honest tactics are a virtue in nil games. I am sorry to have to put it down in black and white, that there were players in tho ranks of our guests who seemed to bo of the opinion that fisticuffs and dangerous hacking are part of the game of Rugby. “In profesioual football, both Soccer and Northern Union, men have been ordered off the. field for much less than what certain British forwards included in their repertoire of supposed sporting Rugby. In the amateur handling code we look to those who play it to give and take hard knocks—not to retaliate with fists. And this is what certain of tho Britishers were "xnTty of. Now, as one who has heard professional Rugby in England described as a travesty of true sport, and not a game for gentlemen, certain incidents in Saturday’s game, in which two or three Britishers were implicated, would not have been tolerated in professionalism. The offenders would have had to march! No referee would have dared to overlook such unpleasant incidents as we saw at Newlands. It wa 8 a pity that at an international match tho onlookers should have shown their disapproval of certain unsportsmanlike methods by ‘booing’ one of our guests, but people who attend football matches are but human—and I cannot say, being human myself and liable to voice my feelings, that the outburst was not justified. Blood is thicker than water —and I cannot help it; I am sentimentally British—but after what I saw at Newlands I should have been a poor sportsman had I wanted Britain to triumph. I prefer to side with good sportsmanship—that is why I am delighted to write of South Africa’s fine and deserving victory.’’