New Zealand v. Australian Footballers.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 84, 6 October 1896, Page 3

New Zealand v. Australian Footballers.

Commenting upon the late tour of the Queensland footballers through Maoriland, Mr Cockcroft, their captain, in an article which he wrote for the Sydney Mail, says :- "As to our experiences, I think Australian teams will never be able to beat New Zealanders playing them on level terms, both teams fit. We play a similar game, though we do not approach the short, sharp passing and backing up which the Wellington team, for instance, showed us. But this is not the question. It is one of physique and stamina. New Zealanders have a much finer physique tban Australians, and they seem to be getting bigger every year. Look at the stamp of the men m the Wellington team, for instance. We could produce no team equal to them. Yet they are not the equals of tbe Taranaki men. But, even when we have tbe physique, we haven't the energy of the New Zealander. Onr teams can't play a game right from beginning to end at top speed as tbey can. The climate, of coarse, accounts for it. In Australia we have the energy stewed out of us for eight months of the year. New Zealand should be able to send a team over to Australia next year which, if the men look after themselves, should carry all before them. Other considerations apart, tbeir combinations, backing up, short passing, and intercepting are better than ours. Wellington, especially forward, was the strongest team we met, and Canterbury the weakest ; and tbe finest passing we saw was at Wellington.