NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 911, 22 August 1907, Page 13

NEWS AND NOTES.

Rotorua plays an Auckland B team next Saturday. • • » * Pat. Walsh, the Parnell forward, has taken up George Smith’s position at the Amateur Sports Club. * * * * Wanganui and Taranaki intend paying a visit to Auckland after the completion of the Southern tour. Wanganui comes to play for the Ranfurly Shield, hut Taranaki has not issued a special challenge. The latter, by the way, is regarded as a stronger combination this season than for many years past. » * * * “ A hot combination” is the way in which the Sydney press sums up the “All Black” professional team. It is also significant that the newspaper comments allude in eulogistic terms to the fairness of their. tactics and the clean manner in which they played in the first match in New South Wales, when they won by 12 points to 8. ♦ * *• * The takings at the professional Rugby match, at Sydney, between New Zealand and New South Wales last Saturday, amounted to £602, of which the New Zealanders’ share was £316. * * * * It is stated that arrangements are being made for a visit to New Zealand by an English professional team m 1909 or 1910.

C. Dunning and George Smith were each the recipients of substantial presentations prior to their departure last Monday for Sydney, to join the professional team. The presentation took the shape in each instance of a purse of sovereigns. W. Wynyard also left by the Sydney boat on Monday evening to join the “ All Black” professional combination.

A rumour was quietly going the rounds on Monday that suspicion hung like the sword of Damocles over four well-known players, in so far as it was known that they had written to the organisers of the professional team demanding a bigger percentage of the profits of the tour than they had been offered, in view of their superior qualifications.

The report went further, and stated that the incriminating correspondence was to come into possession of the Rugby Union, in which case that body would have no alternative but to disqualify, since evidence that any player had asked for payment classed him as a professional.

The sensation of the week in football circles that three well-known players refused to participate in the Southern tour of the Auckland rep. team unless the Rugby Union made it worth their while to do so.

Matters -have now reached a climax, and the cat is right out of the bag. What will the Rugby Union do? There is only one course left open, and that is to disqualify the trio in question. It really looks as though we are on the eve of something exciting. Will next season witness the initiation of a Professional Union in New Zealand, or will these players tacitly stand down, and forever sink out of public notoriety as footballers?

The following Auckland rep. team, under the management of Mr. F. Murray, went South on Tuesday afternoon : —

Backs: Miller, Murray, Twiname, Dillamore, R. Magee, Stuckey, Farrant, Hogan, Ladner, Wilson, all of Auckland, and Coote, of Waikato. Forwards: McDonald, Maguire (City), Maguire (Grafton), Hooper, Pople, Francis, Hall, Kinder, McCormick, Williams, Herring, Walsh, of Auckland, and Hayward and Smith, of Thames.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the 1907 Auckland rep. touring team is weaker than it has been for a decade of years. Still, the opportunity has been provided for bringing out a number of young players, and the team is composed almost entirely of men who have never before toured out of the province.

In the back division, Southern clubs will be introduced to a great many young exponents of the game. Miller, the fullback, is only a boy, and won his rep. cap for the first time this season. On the threequarter-line several other young players will figure, Hogan and Dillamore only having come up from the junior ranks this season.

Hall is the star of the team, and though he has been playing in the pack, it is reported that he will find his way to the five-eighth position. Hayward and Francis are known in the South as rattling forwards, while McDonald, Kinder, Walsh, Smith (Thames), Hooper, Williams, MacCormick and Pople have only this season won rep. honours. A couple of these latter players are not yet out of their teens.

The threequarter-line is not up to the standard of previous years. R. Magee is as clever a five-eighth as ever went South, but the half-backs are the weak link in the mechanism of the whole combination.