FOOTBALL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8004, 6 May 1904, Page 1

FOOTBALL.

- ' ; ' . — « NOTES. (By QUIDNXJNa) Tie? Albion-(^i'istchurch game was, in some respects, disappointing, last year's champions not playing w to tie form that was expected of them. Their forwards, foT the ' greater' part of the game, played with a fair amount of combination, which was too much for the ChristChurch men,, but 'half way through the second spell the Albion men. tired and' began to leawe openings.like those they 'had been vising to advantage. The back play on both, sides was not nearly good enough. The Albion backs made one or two very pretty passing rushes, handling the ball- very cleanly. Those nearest the scran, however, showed a tendency to crowd the wings on to tse> touch lines, spoiling the effects of whaj; might have been useful rushes. T!hi& Christchurch backs had a gi«at deal of 'defensive workto,do, and got through it uncommonly welli though < occasionally /there was hesitation between' Burns ,Qn<J Ollnvier, which nearly ended in trouble. Play was on the Christchurch line for an appreciable portion of the time, but the Reds worked very hard indeed to prevent scoring, and, except for their- one lapse, gained a very fair measure of success. Certainly the attack was not las. "good as it should have been, but this does not detract from, the merit of the Christchurch defence. Albion scored their only try very early in the game, . and led their friends to expect a fairly easy victory ; but the subsequent play showed thafc they bad no " cake-walk " in- hand. The Christr !jhTtrch: > a.tiienijpta i <ttf ; a*ta^k%eTfei' spasmodic,' because th© forwards played with very little oomibina>tion, but when they did settle down for a few moments' they generally managed to give their opponents an anxious time. The referee's whistle was far too much in evidence, not because he blew it, unnecessarily, but because breaches of the rules were very frequent. There were nineteen free-kicks given during the game, and they were mostly penalties for off-side play. The forwards on both slides over-ran the ball very often, and then, apparently did not know what to do. Coming to individual players, Turtill made his reappearance as Albion's full-back, and, although' " dotty " on his bad leg, performed very well, kicking in his best style and'taking the ball cleanly. The wings, Turner and Pengielly, both played well, Turner taking the Imlll very skilfully, and - putting in some nice runs. Henry played his usual game, doing a. large' share of the heavy work, and Gray and Weston were always where they were wanted. Weston saved his side a lot by his kicking, but on the attack he had a tendency to stick to the ball too closely. With good men behind him, he might have given, them more chances. Burns, at half , was very valuable. He got the ball out extremely well, and he stopped a lot of rushes in great style. The forwards "were a very even lot, and played well together. Atkinson was generally to be seen at the head of the rushes, arid Wilson, Vincent and Gillespie supported him ver- thoroughly. The scrum was always well packed, arid the ball came out on the Albion side nine times out of ten. The Christchurch backs suffered by comparison with their opponents. Burns did some good kicking, but hesitated more than- once about, taking the ball, not working well with. Ollivier. Neither of^ these players made any attempt to collar Turner when he scored. Ollivier was in veryttoor form, his kicking being, decidedly weak. Keating, on the other wing, played a -much better game than 7 usual, takirig the ball surprisingly well. If he had been content to kick once or twice, instead of trying to pick up the baJl, he might have got over the line. Cotton (centre) and, Martin (five-eighths), had to bear the brunt of the defensive work, and they proved invaluable to their side. Both kicked and collared well, ' Martin covering a great deal of ground. Holderness was a weak half-back. What little passing he had to do was not clean, and his kicking was almost ludicrous. Walters, M'llraith , and King were easily the best of the forwards, and were prominent in what little attacking their side did. Walters, especially, played * very hard game. The rest were mqr© or less spasmodic in their efforts. . : A very even arid interesting game resulted from the meeting of the Linwood and Canterbury College teams, and though, victory, eventually rested 'with, the former, by the. margin of three points, the result was in doubt up to within .i-few- minutes of " noaidte." The College; forwards -gave a really good exposition of loo.se forwwrd' their drabbling rushes calling /forth universal commendation. A want of coolness when getting near their opponents' goal militated against, their success, ■•' and was responsible for the loss of at least one try. The "Linwood forwards were all at sea in the-ftrst spell, their scrum work being particul.^rly weak, but they showed great improvement in the second half, and beat their opponents for possession of the ball in, almost every scrum.. The superiority of the winners lay in tiheir back play, some of their passing rushes calling forth all th© energies of the opposing team. Their work would have had . fet&r results, though, had ; £hsr flfy been less selfish^ Manning being very loth t^parjtyith the 3b4.1,-^^ would^ ptlwirwise have been a sterling afternoon's work. Tie; College . backs ddd good' individual work, but- they sadly lack combinatipn.and th« art of dpirig the right thing at the right. time. Thfe three-quarters are all speedy xneri, b^- are eyi.derilly averse .to extending themselves fnlly. They are certainly wanting' hs confidence, botto in themselves and each othier. 'Qnoe they conquer these faults, ihrjr should »aJ» a dfn'g«-r6ua

I trio. Some really good kicking was done by the backs of both teams, the line being found oftener and to better advantage than, is usually seen in our contests, Chisiolm, j Bishop and Acheson for the College, and Fisher, Manning and Koskella for Linwood, being prominent in this respect. Bishop's kicking was especially good, and this player showed - great improvement on his. previous form this .season. The full-backs, Fraser (Linwood) and Chisholm (College) got through their tasks very well, but the latter shows a-n inclination to stand too far back when his team are on the attack. The remainder of the backs on either 'si.de' call for no special mention. Of the winners forwards, Halliday, Shanks, Evans, Newton] and Fanning were noticeable, while Morl*.nd, Aitken, Cook and M'Lennan. in; the loose, and Adams^ Levien and Anderson in the scrum, showed up well for the College. The Merivale-Sydenhamj match be'eopied the west ground; at Lancaster Park for one j hour and a half,:. but there was not even five minutes during that time that aoy decent play was shown. Neither side brought off a piece of concerted passing, though *.t is true that there; was a certain amount of indiscriminate throwing about of- the, \*9\, which as often as. not resulted in ground being 1 , gained by the opposing, side. . Of organised, combined attack or .defence th-'te was none. To make a, slow game even slower, the players cleputed to throw the ball in from touch . appeared to have weak arms, and one or two yards was, the full extent of the throw. Thus a continual . series of scrummages near the touch-line eventuated. Both sides trust to the forwards to -win their .game, 'but so much illegal play was allowed by the referee that the vanguard * division had few chances of opening up the game, because immediately a player attempted' a piece of fast work he was promptly tackled, obstructed or held sufficiently long, to prevent an opening' being madej :and the offender usually escaped punishment; in. fact, illegal play and deliberate obstruction were the fea^ tures of the game. Lore, 'the SydenhanL full-back, howevei^ again . played his tearand^pretty game. 'Possibly because he was so far away from ■ his comrades, , his was free from all defects. He was kept busy, too, and made no mistakes, but I should like to be sure he could maintain his form against a; sustained attack. '.Austin and Roddick did some fair place-kicking, also O'Malley, but Peter Menzies was in glorious ' isolation ajl the game. What a pity the veteran is- not kept 'busy. His old dash and determination are still there, and all he wants is work and plenty of it. Drake was easily the best forward in the match, and .shows; great promise. The amount of illegal: play he had to put up with must have sorely tried his good temper. . . . ', ' •. „' ■. , Saturday's games at Lancaster Park were a alight improvement on former exhibitions, this season, but the play is still a long way j below what should be shown by Senior players. 'Judging by the play on Saturday, the most promising .team in the competition is the Canterbury College, which only, requires practice and experience to give a good allround display. On the whole, the play of the teams engaged in the competition *s most unsatisfactory, arid there are no pre-. sent indications of any great advaace along the scientific side of the game. Once or twice on Saturday the referee in the Albion-Chrifitchurch match was subjectr ed to annoyance by a very email section of occupanta of the stand at Lancaster Park! A very jealous pfficer of the R<ugby Union -managed, ijofieeur«^ boy, wfio was removed from the ground, . Canterbury College appear to have a preemptive right to the couth ground at Lancaster Park, judging by the regularity with which- their games are fixed there. Surely, after the interesting and open exhibition which they .gave on Saturday, the Competitions Committee might manage to give them a change of venue, if only for one Saturday. lam sure.both the players and their . supporters would welcome a relief ; from the enforced .weekly patronage of the "frog pond." Speaking of the southern ground; rewnds me that the " spectator nuisance" is becoming serious. The play had to be stopped on several occasions on Saturday to of attempts being | made to clear ihe ground. The delinquents are principally juvenile barrackers, and their proper place i» certainly behind the fence. I In an adjoining column, appears 1 a, list of the proposed alterations to the laws of the game drafted at the Australasian Conference, held in Sydney last August. I might mention that a number of the proposals are not new to New Zealanders, £av- | in^ been discussed .from time to time in j tihis colony. .-.'.• ; E. J. Cotterill, whose death was announced last weekj was one of the wellknown family that has done, good service for Canterbury in representative cricket and football. In the middle; seventies and" early eighties the. deceased was the province's regular goal-keeper in representative football. He was a fine, kick and tackier, ! and a pluckier man in the responsible position has never donned Canterbury colours. A. Harding (Wales) completes the English football team for Australia, J. Sharj land (Surrey), replacing Jenkins. The Southland Rugby Union will guarantee the. amount requested) by the New Zealand Rugby Union towards the expense of sending a team to England. ' The' balance-sheet presented at the annual meeting of the Queenslanct Rugby Union showed a credit of £41 15sj Had it not been for the visit to Queensland of the New Zealand team (writes the correspondent of the Sydney : "Referee"), last season. ■ would tave v bpen a disastrous one financially for the Queensland Rugby Union, which would have fli&d! a diebit balance on. the year's work of £318 Is lOd. Thefe was a profit of £369 16s lOd on the New Zealand visit, ihen.ee the small credit of £41 odd. London "Sportsman" says the match- between Wales and Ireland— referred to in, our London correspondent's notes^-wag "certainly one of the nnost remarkable ever.played since the institution of the international tourney over thirty years ago, and certainly the present generation of footballers hay« never witnessed a struggle between these nations which was so replete with, exciting and remarkable incidents from the kick-off to the final whistle. It often happens that exciting, close games do not always provide high-class exhibitions, but even tho most fastidioug expert could not cavil atr the display given at Belfast on Saturday. It was a struggle between the Irisli forwards and the Welsh backs, and, .rarely has the Welsh attack been seen to suet advantage. The defence of the Welshmen was not so eound, and 1 with the Irish pack in their happiest mood the old truism that the better set of

forwards will always control the fortunes of a game was once again exemplified. With only a quarter of an hour to play, and! two tries to the bad, it seemed 1 any odds: on another defeat for the Irishmen. The forwards, despite their numerical inferiority, however, rose to the occasion, in superb fashion, and with one of those magnificent xushes which! are supposed to be characteristic of Hibernian scrummagers they reduced the Welsh--1 men's lead to a try. Still beating the burly Welsh forwards, they kept play so close to their opponents' lines, and so demoralised the defence that when- Magee started the movement amongst his quartet which ended in Wallace kicking across the ground, Tedford , had .a. prajctically unopposed run in for the try, which Parke converted, and secured a victory for Ireland"." The "Pall Mall Gazette" says ;— ■". This extraordinary match was essentially ai battle between the old and, the new style under equal conditions, for there was neither wind nor sun, while the ground was in. admirable order, and the ball as it left the maker throughout. That the old style .triumphed in the end waa due to two causes — the pluck and stamina of the Irish forwards, and the total inability of the Welsh backs to stop the Irish rushes." I was the first writer in New Zealand) to advocate punted, goals' ' being allowed, and was more or- less jeered 'at for such a suggestion. The last time I urged the adoption of the idea the Sydney " Bulletin" was brutally nasty at my expense. Now, I notice, that' tne Inter-State Conference held in Sydney last year 'has decided' to suggest to the English Eugby Union that punted goals ghoulj score", in these words : " There seems no good reason why a punted goal, .which will require the exercise of « certain amount of skill, should not count." The "Bulletin," previously so assertive, now crawls down, and says " the propjosal to allow goals to *be punted* is a move in the right direction." • , The following is from the London " Sportsman '< of March 14:— "The 'boys' international match, which took, place at Cardiff, on Saturday, between selected teams of 'England and Wales, probably marked an €Ta in the advance of Rugby football. Certainly it stood out as the first match • of its kind, and, consequently, apart from the ideal -weather, andi the usual interest taken in sport, the novelty and originality of the match attracted a crowd of close on 15,000. ' The game was one of the most interesting possible to witness, although it was almost entirely in favour of Wales. Where the Webb ibovs I showed most (pronounced superiority was in the scrummage, where their packing -would 1 i have done credit tot a team of veterans, j Behind the scrummage, too, Wales had a big advantage."* Wales won by twentythree points to five. .