SPORT AND SPORTSMEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18468, 21 May 1928, Page 9

SPORT AND SPORTSMEN.

The Napier Association (writes “Straight Left” in the “Hawke’s Bay Herald”) has engaged Ilughie Dwyer to act on behalf of the association in the engagements of boxers from Australia. Dwyer has been asked to interview three of the best in Australia with a view to matching them as soon as possible. Dwyer should prove to be an ideal representative, knowing the ins and outs of the game in the Dominion and the conditions under which associations do business. A New York paper says:—lf Gene Tunney and Miss Caroline Bishop, of Beverly Hills, California, are engaged they are not ready to announce it yet. Both avoided point blank denial of the report when Miss Bishop, with her aunt, left Miami Beach to return to California. They spent six days at the hotel Tunney calls home when there. Each day Tunney was seen with them on drives, and at luncheon or dinner. Tunney said it would be “premature \ and unfair to Miss Bishop to suggest” their engagement. Miss Bishop said such reports were an “unfair test of our friendship.” X « K Commenting on the subject of Rugby tours, a writer in the London “Daily Express” says:—“Many good people in the Rugby world are giving anxious thought just now to what may be called imperial politics. Their problem reached the worrying stage when, at ?he recent meeting of the International Board, it was decided to inform the New Zealand Union that the board regretted their inability to send a team to New Zealand in 1930. The ostensible reason is the impossibility of collecting a representative side. A contributory cause may be lack of unanimity among the home authorities. That was suggested the other night, when a distinguished figure in the Rugby world said in the course of an after-dinner speech that there was a strong feeling that the English Rugby Union should take up the New Zealand invitation. It would be a thousand pities if we had here even the remotest indication of the possibility of another international disagreement.”

A. Nourse pays a tribute to Australian cricketers when he says Australians are the same both on and off the field. They play the game as it should be played. The famous South African cricketer goes on to say that some cricketers go on to the field as though they were going to a funeral. After sitting mute in the pavilion waiting their turn, they leave when it comes and receive the applause of the crowd seriously, and never say a word till they return to the pavilion again. Australians are not like that. They talk. If you do anything out of the ordinary on the field they praise you. If you are unlucky they pass along a cheery word. “I much prefer this to the solemn business.” says Nourse. >: « x England has slipped from her high place in the tennis world and many regrets have been expressed and many reasons attributed as the cause. Be these right or wrong, a clear picture of her decadence in men’s tennis is shown by the final eight players at the Wimbledon championship in the past 10 years. From 1919 to 1921 each year three English players reached the final eight; in 1922 five competed; in 1923 four took part; in 1924 one represented England; in 1925 and 1926 there were two each year; and in 1927 no English player entered the final rounds. The English council is concerned with this decline and strenuous efforts are being made to cope with the fault. X X X Evidently the Ranfurly Shield has some commercial value. At a recent meeting of the Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union a tenderer for the right to sell sweets, soft drinks, and cigarettes in the park for the season offered £5 as her contract price. She stated that if Hawke's Bay won the shield back this year she would willingly pay £lO for the monopoly. Members congratulated the lady on her business acumen and gave heir the One mpmber remarked that the offer was tantamount to a donation of £5 to the expenses of recovering the shield. X X X I would not be surprised to see V. Jupp, the Northants amateur, included in the next English team (writes W. H. Ponsford in the Melbourne “Herald”). He is, I should say, the best amateur all-rounder in England at the present time. Jupp is a right-hand batsman, and he can hit the ball very hard. It is, however, his bowling that should give him his chance. He is a right-hand spin bowler something like Don Blackie’s type. I should say that he would be successful out here. Jupp headed both the batting and bowling averages for Northants last year, scoring 1128 runs at an average of 35. and taking 91 wickets at a cost of 19 runs a wicket. X X X The All Blacks should be in Durban to-morrow. Their first match is set down for Wednesday, May 30. This will be against a combined country club's team at Capetown. On the following Saturday a town team will be met and if at full strength will probably be one of the hard matches’of the tour. Then the tourists proceed to Kimberley for a match with Griqualand West. The fourth game will be with Transvaal, the runners-up in the Currie Cup tournaqient last year. Four more matches will be played before the first Test, which is to be played at Durban on June 30. The tourists will meet all the provinces which engaged in the Currie Cup competition last year. X X X W. Le Warne, the big Sydenham League forward, is playing at the top of his form this season. On Saturday he scored two fine tries. Wncn in possession of the ball, Le Warne can show a rare turn of speed and any halfhearted tacklers are brushed off like flies. X •* A League team “ scored ” twice at the one in a match on a country ground on Saturday. The ball had been kicked over a fence, and while it was being recovered another ball was used. The side on attack were storming the line with the new ball when the other one was kicked back into the field of play. A wing threequarter gathered it in and. with the leather tucked under his arm, sprinted across to where the forwards were struggling in front of the goal, and dived over for a “ score.” As it happened, a player with the right piece of leather dived over at almost the same time. Only one try was allowed.