FOOTBALL.

Timaru Herald, Issue 170268, 13 July 1920, Page 4

FOOTBALL.

NOTES 'AND COMMENTS-. (By "Touchline.") THE PREMIERSHIP.

The New Zealand team had two men (Mulfit and Fletcher) injured at Auckland. .

L. O'Leary met with an accident at work yesterday, and will not go to Australia.

"Blue and Black": Your imputation is groundless, arid I must decline to give it publicity in this column. Old Boys beat Celtic o— - t 's - Zingari beat Old Boys 32—0; Celtic beat Zingari 42—3. A kaleidoscope could do ho better.

Broken legs have been few and far between in South Canterbury for a long time, but there were two injuries of this nature last week. In. the majority of cases they are due to rough grounds and the" condition of playing areas should be given more attention.

Old Boys have a predilection for No. 2 ground. Last year they did passing well on it; tiiis year they have been relegated tp the unpopular area four times, with the following result: Boat Celtic, beat beat Star, lost to Temuka by two points. As it is fairly certain that a good many players in addition to the first chosen fifteen will be requix-ed to carry out the representative programme, with the object of keeping reserves in form an endeavour will, be made to arrange one or more matches for a South Canterbury B team nexi month.

The downfall of the two leading teams has infused new interest into the premiership battle, though it is unlikely they will be deposed from their positions at the head of the list. On recent form, however, Celtic and Old Boys look like hustling them along, and if the Celtic pack continue in the vein they Opened up last week Temuka will have a busy day on Thursday. In making a draw with Auckland the New Zealand team did rather better than most of their predecessors in similar games. Players resolutely refuse to take risks on the eve oi sailing, and nearly every dominion team (including the hall-marked .ill Blacks of 1905) has been beaten by a provincial combination before embarking. Auckland would have small chance of drawing with the present party on its return.

Perhaps with the idea of proving that they are a scoring team, eleven Celtic men notched points in one way or another on Thursday. As so often happens, anyone could get goals when they were not needed, and whereas mucb-desired scores were missed by the regular kicks at Temuka, such unknown men in this department as Angland. Shea, O'LeaTy, and L. Kane sent the leather safely over the bar when success was not a matter of much lriiportanoe. Forty-two pftints must be something of a Oeltio record, and had the game gone, on jnucfe longer the historic 51 piled up" by Pirates against Celtic would have been reached.

Probably as tbe outcome of the two accidents last week, numerous inquiries have been made why the Union' has not an insurance scheme in -operation and a member of the Management Committee intends to bring the matter '•up at a meeting, of delegates. The la-st scheme initiated was fe. failure because those wfeoin it was intended to benefit declined to support it. One season a company was found foolish enough to undertake tile insurance, of piaygrs against accidfent at the ridiculous f&e of ihalf-a-croifrn for the season. The clubs were circularised by the Union and othfer mean's taken of bringing the advantages of the policy under their notice. As a result something like forty or fifty men insured and if memory serves, nearly half of these wfere from Mackenzie iStib-Union. Next year, I thiak, the premium v. - as xaisW to six shillings per man—and the scheme collapsed, _ The conference between representatives of tft# Sports' Grouiid Company and the Management Committee of the Union may have very important Tesuits, affecting the future control of the Athletic Grounds. The company often has been charged with lack •df sympathy with football, and with extorting too high a rent from the Union. There • has never been much ground for the latter charge, and the shareholders • have iiat #axed fat from their investment. "What has he en an annual source of perturbation to successive' committees has been the insecurity of tenure, aiid the inclination of some members of the company to ignore a moral obligation imposed on tneni when the ground was sold to : them at a moderate figure, oh the understanding that it should fee reserved for amateur sport. The three dele- . gates from the company who met the | Union, however, displaced a highly [ sympathetic spirit, and it is under-: stood that they agreed to recommend most generous , proposals to their shareholders in the interests of sports. Thursday was not one of Temuka's lucky days. Profiting by the eaoo qS otheii teaffig at iWjgmaig df

late, and realising the disadvantages resulting from the long trip', they got together a strong team to iheet fliiviloii, Morgan, being the only absentee, and a compulsory one at that; The distressing kccktent at Saltjvater Creek, however, put a damper oii tlie spirits of the team—one or two declined to play, and others had little taste for the game—and most of the Temuka men state that Hiwiroa were more thaii six points better On ilia day. To make matters worse A. Edgeler (not J. Edgeler as first, re- | ported) had to be left in AVaimate Hospital v»th a, broken bone, so that tiie Skinner Cup holders are not likely soon to forget their first trip to Wai-. mate. The riiwiroans played with dash all through though they lack combiriation, and their defence withstood all assaults. E. Burns, the full back, stood the test of Temuka's high punting, and his fielding and line kicking were features of the. game. Garland was tried at wing three-quarter, aria showed that he is a determined runner, while his tackling was a joy to the ci'owd. Anderson pi ay fed his usual reliable game at five-eighths, but the best Hiwiroa back was Dewar (half), who played a splendid all-round game, 1 being particularly deadly on defence, j Freeman, a sound hooker, was -cne { headiest of the home forwards, withj V. Eathorne showing dash and keen-1 hess in the loose. Davis, the Temuka t goalkeeper, got through a heavy day's j work well and A. Edgeler was making | a good impression when he had to re- j tire. J. Edgeler sent out clean passes t from the scrum, and instituted several I attacks which broke down behind. A. I Scott was the best forward oh the ground, being brilliant all through, j and the lock man, Bennett, also shone 1 in the loose. Hiwiroa were masters the day, and have the satisfaction of gaining their first win at the expense of an unbeaten team. They should be heard from next t j The game allotted last week to NO. 1 ground was a. disappointment to everyone hut Celtic, and the public early turned it down in favour of the greater attraction on No 2. Zingnri to'flk the field with four juniors who had already played in the preliminary ga.r-ie, and though they commenced briskly few people gave them a winning chance. Not many, however, couid have been prepared for the heavy drubbing meted out to them, though half way throngi; the first apell it was evident that the magnitude of the score" depended on. Celtic's ability to. make use of opportunities. To Celtic's credit be it said—and this after making every alloiyahee for the weakness of the opposition — they provided one of the many Surprises of the day by their_ exhibition of a talent for scoring which nobody had credited them with l . Considering their overwhelming advantage in weight, the scrum work of tha Greens was shocking —the club .managers should try sbme way of detecting the eight-ourices-to-the pound scrummers —and in the tight work they did not push the Zingari men aside as they might have done. But in the loose they showed 100 per cent, more skill than in any previous game, and if they continue in this vein will acquire merit in the public eye. If their newfound proficiency iri the open has not been gained nt the expense of soli.} work, they have a good chance of beating Temuka this week. On that point I have fear. O'Leary was so often prominent that it would be idlo to suggest that he did not play a great game, yet I fancied more than once I saw him playing "wisely," and waiting for the ball to appear. It w.-.s his excellence in the tight stuff that first made an impression on criticsand selector, which should be noted and selector, a point which should not be overlooked by other forwards in the team. Shea was another prominent forward* .and McAlten is pretty good for his weight- Direen, the winger, was in the picture from start to finish, overshadowing his opposing wing,, and a great number ol : the Celtic rushes were due to his initja : tive. Celtic tried a rearrangement of their backs—Joyce coming into fiveeighths, Lynch going to wing threequarter, and Kane and M. Houlihan changing places—and though the game did not afford a fair test of the wisdom of the change, it proved a. good move as far ag Joyce was concerned Annear scored a, br&ce of tries in good stylo, and the other hacks handled safely. It is a Rugby aphorism that once the score becomes a. score it may be anything, and Zingari are not forty points inferior t-o Celtic. There can be neither pleasure nor pTo r fit in emphasising their defeat, beyond saying tMt after Celtic had scored asecond time they actS&pted tlie fact that the task set them was too great, and were inclined to let it go at that. Storey's absence seemed .to Bare a dispiriting effect, and Taylor was the only r dacK tp show senior form. Hi" try Was a fitting reward for his pluck. The forwards were no match for their lusty opponents,, and cannot be blamed tor the whacking, "But yesterday .... Zingari might hfeve sto<sd against the world, now . . Old Uoys> who plunged: a multitude of youthful supporters into despair early in the season, became the team of tlie hour _by overcoming Star on No. 2, and in tihe Concluding stages rouged their . juvenile (and adult) friends to ecstatic roars of approval. Having slated Old Boys for their play and manner, of losing ag&inst Zinghn, it is with the greater pleasure that I can congratulate them on their fine recovery and finer win. It Would be a mistake to place them on too high a pedestal as a tteult of Thursday's match, or to overlook manifest weaknesses in their play, but it ean .be safely said; that in addition to having most of. the lucifc, they pljyed the better football of the day. Ifie game did not provide niuch in the way of majchme-like work, but it was about the fastest affair; I Ijaye aeon on Nv. 3,

and on a good' ground would have been a scorcher. The last ten minutes alone were worth twice the modest tanner. Old Boys took the field without Scott, who has tonsilitis, hut this heavy loss was more than offset by the absence from the Star ranks of Logan, Bead, and Underbill, the two backs 7?eing greatly missed. .In addition to this a promising young forward in AYyntt, who was filling Logan's place in tihe five-eighths line, was put out of action by. what was thought to be a broken leg, and Lee, the substitute for Head, also had to retire, both in the second spell. Both were replaced, however. The absence of Logan made a tremendous difference to Star, as the three-quarter line was not fed, and in the last quarter of an hour. when. Cooke made some brilliant dashes, no one followed him as Logan would have done. These dashes of Cooke's disclosed oiie Weakness of Old Boys—the indifferent tackling of the forwards at dose quarters. Another factor which led to Star's undoing wag their atrocious scrum work, particularly in tlis second spell, and a mistake was made in pulling men like Stewart and Wyatfc out of the pack to fill vacancies in the rearguard. Tlie losers were unfortunate in not being awarded a try in the second spell—they would have been given it had the referee been in a position to see that Clarke had safely grounded the, ball before the corner flag was knocked out —but th'e referee hot : aeirig able to see what happened, gave a perfectly justifiable decision, which was not accepted in the proper spirit. Robertson, Old Boys' fullback, was patchy, and the same can be said of tihe Star man Dickson; both marred some good work by fumbling simple balls. The Old Boys' wings- had rather a dull day oii attack—the ball seldom. travelled through more than three hands in the rushes—but de ; fended fairly well. Cockroft, at centre, was worth his place for his moral effect on the team alone. His receiving and delivery of passes was a trifle erratic, and his pace is not improving, but his kicking was good, and he did a lot of sound work. He has lost none of his popularity with the crowd, and if he strikes his old form will get a great reception. G. Lawson did some neat things at five-eighths, though he still keeps . possession too long, The surprise of the team was Mason, who early in the year was a long way below senior form. On Thursday there was not a better back, on the aide on. and if his defence was not great it got his team out of some awkward corners by his dash. D. Law son was a good deal smarter than usual at half. Cabot, in spite of some very hard knocks, played gamely at wing.. The Old Boys pack wag beaten for the "oall in most of the scrums, (though the work of Star hookers was nullified in the back row) but did well in tlie line, and. showed fine dash in the open. Snodgrass appeared most prominent, hut there was just a suspicion that lie w ; aa waiting for openings. Even if he was, he was' usually in the right place when ail onening presented itself. Parker and "Whiting, though not ove r successful as hookers, played well outside the scrum. Star had a good three-quarter line, but it was badly served owing to the weakness in the five-eighths department, and in its anxiety to be doing something when let down by the fivoeigirths, got too close to the pack, making most of the passing it did do too flat-footed. Coppin. seldom got the ball except when hemmed in, and though Doull made one great run, ho seemed to he fretting for work. Clarke appeared in a new light as a good tvirig. Be has realised that be is pot a Lynch, and discarded the oneLanded business, and his strong running did a lot to justify his Palestine reputation. Cooke, at half, had a. distinct grievance against his scrum men, arid when he did get possession was unable to link up with his three-quart-Though he runs too much for a half (except he has a Logan behind him), this was justifiable in tlie light of the five-eighths. situation,. and lie tried hard single-handed, to pull -the game out of tlie fire. Fitzsimmor.s and Robson did a lot of solid work in the Star pack, and Oollings lacks nothing but confidence. Stewart was :i much rilore important factor in t>ie vangliard than later on at five-eighths.

to !H O «4H Si -4 Ps if £0 a .la -+J ci 5 Temuka . Star . . . Old Boys • s £ J 'o £■4 . fS . 6 5 1 44 24 10 . 6 . 7 4 4 2 3 67 61 60 86 8 8 !3 Celtic .. , . . 6 3 3 77 30 Zingari . . . 6 2 4 71 86 4 Hiwiroa .. . . 7 1 6 40 67 2