WELLINGTON FOOFBALL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2978, 12 April 1911, Page 61

WELLINGTON FOOFBALL.

STRICTER MANAGEMENT NEEDED. RUFFIANLY CONDUCT UNPUNISHED. (Feom Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, April 9. Anyone who has watched Wellington Rugby football during recent yeans knows full well that its management and control leave a good deal to be desired. Last season the incident of the broken jaw caused a sensation and criminal proceedings, but no one has been punished. The “judicial” calibre of the local management may be gauged from the following facta, stated in to-night’s Post : —“The breaker of Calcina.i’s jaw in broad daylight by means of a punch at the Athletic Park last season has not been detected. After one accused had been found ‘ Not guilty ’ by >a jury at the Supreme Court last November, the Rugby Union was to have an independent inquiry. This investigation was not undertaken till three months had elapsed from the date of the acquittal. A well-known and well-re-spected Rugby enthusiast stated to a. Post representative yesterday that when it was announced that the Rugby Union was to make an inquiry he desired to produce some witnesses, several senior footballers, who were spectators at the Poneke-Athle-tic match. He was distinctly given to understand that the union, acting under one of its rules, would accept only the evidence of players engaged in the match under notice. Thus important witnesses missed any opportunity at the inquiry. After the inquiry had closed it was discovered that outsiders had been allowed to give evidence, and that a member of the Athletic Club had been allowed to appear for a certain accused and crossexamine witnesses. The other party to the case was not thus represented. It is therefore complained that men capable of producing important evidence were misled into a belief that their witnesses could not be called, and they submit that this misunderstanding is wholly the fault of the union.”

Dealing- with the matter in its leading columns, the Post says Even if one member did exclaim ‘ hurrah ! vindicated !’ it is a hasty deduction from the New Zealand Union's cold, formal,- non-committal letter. The union has yet to dear itself at the bar of public opinion. On a par with the logic of that comical ‘ Hurrah! vindicated !’ was the declaration that the union had been ‘very successful in checking ruffianism last year,’ because ‘only three cases of ordering off had occurred during the whole of the season.’ Surely that is a disingenuous argument. The ‘ only three,’ though we do not press the point, might be used just as well against the union as for the union. The outstanding fact with which we are chiefly concerned is thot a scandalous brutal act of ruffianism brought no punishment to anybody except the victim, and we are not satisfied that the Rugby Union’s inquiry was sufficiently prompt and exhaustive to discover the culprit, whoever he may have been.”