LEAGUE JOTTINGS FROM ENGLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19267, 2 January 1931, Page 14

LEAGUE JOTTINGS FROM ENGLAND.

EXHIBITION GAMES MAY BE PLAYED IN FRANCE. The next move of interest in New Zealand Rugby League circles, having relation to the status of the game, will be the conference of council delegates with representatives of South Island Leagues. At the pre-Christmas meeting of the New South Wales League, Miss D. Stevens, who has been on the office staff in S3'dney for seventeen 3-ears, and was leaving to be married, received a handsome presentation. Miss Stevens is well known to New Zealand officials and players who have visited Australia. Subsequently the management decided to invest £2OO in the Federal loan.

Latest files from the Homeland reveal results indicating the varying fortunes of leading teams. On November 15 Halifax, who have a strong forward set and are reinforced by' Lou Brown, of Auckland, in the backs, defeated Oldham by two goals to nil. Swinton, the leaders on League championship table, wqre considered lucky to scramble home with a goal margin against St Helens Recreation, while Salford, who hold second position on the major list, went down by 7—o to St Helens in a game which developed rough tendencies, seven men, including Hardgrave, meeting with injuries, and two being ordered off. Broughton Rangers, with Lance Davies, their new Welsh centre, beat Widnes B—3, Castleford, with Askin, the international, late of Leeds, playing well with the brilliant Atkinson, 'trounched Hunslet 21—15, and Leeds had too much pace for Hull Kingston Rovers, whom they defeated 13—5. Harris, the Queensland player, who made his debut this season with Leeds, which team has a record of nine victories and two draws in eleven matches, has scored eighteen tries in the series. He has phenomenal speed. E. T. Spillane, Wigan’s Christchurch three-quarter, has been placed on the open-to-transfer list at £4OO, and the price asked for the transfer of A. C. Falwasser, the ex-Auckland Rugby player, has been reduced to £250. Regarding the recent split in the French Rujby Federation when twelve leading teams withdrew from competition, it is stated that the English Rugby League has put forward a proposal to send two teams to France to play exhibition matches at the end of the season. An official returned from Paris says that the development provides a "unique opportunity for the establishment of the code across the Channel. _____ TENNIS PLAYERS’ WINTER TRAINING. FRENCHMEN TAKE AN INTENSIVE COURSE (Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON, November 27. Intensive winter training is being indulged in by the young French lawn tennis hopes. Most of the players every day do twenty minutes’ physical culture, about ten minutes’ running, and then have a shower bath before massage. Henri Cochet, the greatest exponent of tennis to-day, makes athletics an important part of his own preparation, which is, however, confined to summer months. Cochet practises starts like a sprinter, does a dash of 60 or 70 yards, jumps high and low, then runs from 700 to 1000 yards. This is supplemented by physical exercises especiall3* suitable to a tennis player. No such careful preparation is made by British players to keep themselves fit. A few years back Tottenham Hotspur Football Club offered to train anyone the Lawn Tennis Association cared to send to them. Had this general offer been taken advantage of Britain might have been in a better position as a tennis nation than she is to-day. Gordon Crole-Rees, the former England Davis Cup player, is said to have played his last tournament game at Cromer recentl>-. His tennis life has been short and merry. It was not until 1923 that he came into prominence and by 1925 he was playing in the Davis Cup. In 1928 his partnership with Cyril Eamcs took Great Britain to the fourth round of the world team competition.

Not much more than a 3-ear ago Walter Hagen won the British open golf championship for the fourth time. Last year he was not included in the ten greatest professionals in America! And Hagen is still on the right side of forty*. The year’s ranking of America’s professional golfers is as under: —1. MacDonald Smith. 2. Tommy Armour. 3. Horton Smith. 4. Gene Sarazen. 5. Harry Cooper. 6. Charlie Lacey. 7. Leo Diegel. S. A 1 Espinosa. 9. Joe Kirkwood. 10. Johnny Farrell. MacDonald Smith gets his position for being second to Bobby Jones in the British Open and American Open. He was in each case only two strokes behind the peerless amateur. With Jones out of the way, Ilagen may be heard of again next season. Perhaps he was a bit tired of playing the Nightmarch role to Bobby Phar Lap.