FOOTBALL

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume X, Issue 478, 21 September 1899, Page 8

FOOTBALL

[By

Vigilant, ]

J. Coote, the Thames half-back, who is in the Postal Service, has been transferred to Auckland from Paeroa. He will be an acquisition to the club he decides to play for next season. The Thames members of the Auckland football team that has just toured the colony returned to the Thames on Monday, and were met at the wharf by the Mayor (Mr H. J. Greenslade and several of the officials of the local Bugby Union, who congratulated them upon the prominent part they had taken in the several matches played. The Mayor in his remarks expressed a hope that next season a team from the Thames and the surrounding districts would be sent to tour the coloy, and promised a substantial donation in aid of a fund for such a purpose. It was also announced that the new banner ordered from England some time ago on behalf of the local Bugby Union had arrived, and would shortly be presented. A team of Ponsonby District Football Club players leave by the ten minutes past five o’clock train on Friday evening to play the Aratapu Football Club. • The following are the Ponsonby players;—A. Webber, B. Masefield, V. Masefield, B. Lendrum, S. Riley, P. Galloway, J. Bule, A. Braund, C. Stephenson, M. Bylance, A. Watson, T. Payne, F. Blomfield, R. Hemingway, D. Clare, J. Carder, and B. Carder. Mr r* .J. Ohlson will accompany the team as referee. The Auckland representative footballers returned home on Saturday morning after their victorious tour of the colony. Under the capable captaincy of Harrison our boys handsomely beat Otago, Wellington, and Taranaki, and drew with Canterbury after a sterling forward game. For three years Auckland has not been defeated in interprovincial football. Such a record is one to be proud of indeed, and to read the opinions of southern critics on the 1899 team makes one blush with pardonable pride. A Dunedin writer, commenting on the OtagoAuckland match, in which the former played “ wingers,” points out that the way to meet wingforwad play is for the opposing forwards to screw the scrummage. This, however, the Otago forwards did not do ; they heeled out, and thus allowed Gallagher and • aing to get round and smother their backs. Such a fine pack of fast, dashing forwards are a credit to any province, and they will probably carry the Auckland flag victoriously throughout their tour (says a Dunedin writer in commenting on the recent inter-pro-vincial). They beat the local men badly in the scrum, and the way they dribiled and passed to each other with their feet was a treat to watch. The Auckland backs were fast —very fast. When McPike and Harrison got away, as they did several times, they showed a pace and an ability to pass that put the blues’ efforts completely in the shade. With Absolum on the right wing instead of McGregor, they would be an unrivalled set of threequarter backs. A Wellington writer thinks George Gillett the prince of place-kickers, and doubts whether his superior is to be found in the colony.