PUBLIC SCHOOLS MATCHES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 693, 18 June 1903, Page 8

PUBLIC SCHOOLS MATCHES.

A Grade. Nelson-street (five) beat Parnell (three). Boresford-street and Napier-street played, a draw (no score). Richmond Road (tcrec) beat Ponsonby (nil). Wcllesley-strcet (nineteen) beat Mount Eden (nil). B Grade. Chapel-street, v. Ellerslie : Not played. Bavlield (twentv-one) beat Mount Roskill (nil).

Newmarket won from Wollesley-street by default. A v. B Grade. Onehunga and Remuera played a draw (no score). At Christchurch, on Saturday, the weather was beautifully fine, but the ground heavy, for football. Albion ten points (two goals) beat Christchurch, three points (a try) ; Sydenham, twelve points (a goal, a potted goal, and a try), beat Canterbury College, nil : Linwood, thirty-six points (six goals, two tries), beat Lyttelton, nil ; Merivalc, fourteen points (a goal, two penalty goals, and a try), beat Old Boys, ten points (tw o gvals). The firat round of the championship is now completed, and Albion lead with six points, Sydenham following with five and a-half, and Christchurch coming third, with five. * On Saturday, at Dunedin, Alhambra and Southern played a drawn game, neither side scoring ; Kaikorai, fifteen, beat. University, three; Dunedin, fourteen, beat Pirates, nil; Zingari-Richmond, nine, beat Union, nil. An “ o*l d International ” writes as follows to an English paper Thfa is the second year within recent times in which the England v. Scotland match fftis been won by a dropped goal. Drop-kicking, as opposed to punting, is the beauty of the Rugby game from the spectators’ point of view. At our public schools 1 suppose that drqp-kickwrg is still cultivated. I should Jjejaorry.4# cadi to blind the

number of hours which I occupied at school at ‘ punt, about,’ which consisted in taking drop-kicks in leisure I.a If-hours. I found the use of all this training when, after leaving school I became a candidate for international football. My object in writing this is to urge on ail' football players at our public schools to cultivate the art of drop-kixeking with both feet. I am satisfied that after 33 years, experience, partly practical and partly theoretical, of Rugby football, that there is no surer way of getting your international cup than by cultivating at school the art of dropping with either foot. A man who can kick moderately well with either foot, can kidk moderately well with either foot, and can thus make a certainty of getting his drop equally well while running either to. the right or the loft, is much more valuable in a team than one who can drop-kick, magnificently only when running in one of these two directions. If he has to stop and turn before kicking, his chance is often lost, unless he is such an exceptionally fast runner that he can outrun anyone opposed to him, and who can do this in an international match against, picked runners ?” The writer’s remarks should be taken to heart by players) here. How often it happens that a goal from the field may win a match, and nothing demoralises an opposing team so quickly. It seems a lost art so far as Aucklanders are concerned.