NOTES BY FORWARD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 42

NOTES BY FORWARD.

I. Jenkins, one of the Southland team that played here last Saturday, possesses a unique record —that of having represented his union in every match, 28 in all, that its representatives have played. Tho gate takings at the Southland-Otago match at Carisbrook were £97 13s. When the filthy weather is considered, this may be regarded as satisfactory to the local union. The defeat suffered at the hands of Southland on Saturday last is the most severe that an OtagcT- representative team has ever sustained at home. The Otago Union has in all these years been able to put a sufficiently strong team in the field to escape any drubbing such as all the unionß have at some time or other had to submit to. The worst charge, I suppose, that can be levelled against any player is that he is so destitute of honour that, for a money consideration, he would not play 'all he knew for his province. I extremely regret to say that it has been suggested against one player in a recent match that he was " dead." As I have heard nothing to substantiate the statement, however, I refrain fom mentioning the match, or from indicating who the player in question is. It is worthy of remark that while Duncan and Stephenson were able, to play in the three matches of the Otago representatives away from home without suffering injury, both were disabled in the practice match on their return, and thus incapacitated for last Saturday's match. Sinclair was unable to play in consequence of an injury received in the Wellington match, and Smith was suffering from an attack of measles. Misfortunes certainly crowded upon the Otago representative players last week. The play in the return match between Southland and Otago is dealt with so fully elsewhere that I do not feel it necessary to comment upon it at any length. The unexpected and decisive defeat of the local team furnished an inglorious termination of a season in which Otago was reckoned to have at its commafid an exceedingly strong combination —an estimate that the result of

the matches at Chrislchureh and Wellington had served to confirm. The forward team, regarded as one of the best that the O.R.F.U. has had to represent it for yearß, went all to pieces before the opposing vanguard. It is not to be credited that the form shown by the Otago forwards on Saturday was true form. Practically the same team of Otago forwards jkad beaten the same team of Southland forwards at Invercargill ; now the tables were reversed with a vengeance. Tha /Southland (forwards (probably played below their form at Invercargill, as they certainly did at Chistehurch, and their form on the Carisbrook ground was presumably their true form, but no one who had seen" the Otago forwards play in the previous interprovincial matches would have believed it possible that they could have made such a poor stand as they did. When one considers the relative displays of the two back teams, one has to remember; that the Southland backs, thanks to the superiority of their forwards, wore playing an attacking game, and the Otago backs a defensive game. The conditions are very different, and if the Ota.go forwards had not crumbled away so badly before their opponents, one may conclude knowing who the Otago backs were, that they would have appeared to very much better advantage. As for the Southland backs, I can bestow no higher praise on them than to say that they could scarcely have handled the ball better if the match had been played in fine weather, on a dry ground, and with a dry ball. Footballers and war, a contemporary remarks, are not altogether an incongruous mixture. Lieutenant Hobson, whose recent sinking of the Merrimac before Santiago has made him famous, was at one time a resident in Paris, and was among the firat to join the White Rovers Football Club, who pioneered the Association game inio France. One of the founders of the club, to an English writer, did not speak very highly of Hobson's play. He remarked: ' 'Hobson always played as though he did not know on which side he was on. He kicked all over the place, and among the most oelebrated of these kicka was one that put a prominent member of our club to bed for six weeks." At a meeting of the delegates of the New Zealand Football Association the following resolutions were agreed to: — "That the tournament should be held every two years at the different centres in rotation; that in the intervening years the shield may be challenged for, the match to take place on the ground of the holders ; that in the opinion of l!u3 conference it i 3 the duty of every centre io compete in the tournament."