Sport and Sportsmen.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18643, 21 December 1928, Page 11

Sport and Sportsmen.

If, as is supposed to be the case, the Sanders Cup Trials, now in progress, are for the purpose of selecting the best boat and the best crew to represent the province at Akaroa, there has been a very serious oversight on the part of those responsible for the organisation of the selection. (Says a nothern writer). H,ow can any selector, no matter how competent he may be, be expected to obtain the best combination of boat and crew when the same men sail the same boats in every trial? This means that a good skipper in a slow boat does not show up to advantage, and that a excellent hand may be overlooked because he is one of the inferior quartet. Surely it is in the interests of the sport to shuffle the personnel of the fourteenfooters about until the best possible crew is arrived at. A letter has been received from J. Carlton, Australasian double sprint champion, who is an honorary member of the Olympic A. A. Club, to the effect that he has started training with a view to getting fit in case the German sprinter visits Australia. (Writes “Spike” in the “Dominion. ” Carlton expresses the opinion that until cinder tracks 'are laid down in Australia and New Zealand, colonial sprinters can have but little hope of success at subsequent Olympic Games. He hopes to lose a stone in weight before settling down to serious work. M 0 X X B. B. Wilson, the veteran Yorkshire batsman, who is now coach to Taranaki Cricket Association, gave a taste of his quality by hitting up a century in each innings for Taranaki against Wanganui in the recent Hawke Cup match at Wanganui. S. Lay, the New Zealand champion javelin thrower, also notched a century for Taranaki in the same match. X * X The ruinous effect which the cultivation of “ the social spirit ” in bowls is having on this once-purposeful and forthright game (says a Sydney journal) is becoming every day more apparent. There is no place for women in bowls proper, and their recent intrusion on its sacred mystery in N.S.W. is being marked by the most devastating departures from the strict ethics of the game. As an instance, I beg to quote the account of “an open-air dance” held at a N.S.W. club quite recently; they danced on the sacred green itself. What it must have looked like after an evening of prancing high heels I forbear to conjecture. Can anvone imagine the trustees of the Sydney Cricket Ground giving a dance on the pitch held in readiness for a coming Test match ? The desecration would be no greater in the one case than it is in the other.