FOOTBALL.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 515, 11 September 1902, Page 4

FOOTBALL.

THE BIG MATCH,

| Notes by 11 The Whistle.”] Next Saturday afternoon, as everyone from Hick’s Bay to the Mabia Peninsula knows, the Rugby football champions of Hawke’s Bay play the chosen fifteen of Poverty Bay on Victoria Domain. This is tho one solitary big contest players and followers of tho game in this district have to look forward to in the year, and is it any wonder that exceptional interest attaches to it ?

The “ glorious isolation ” of the Poverty Bay district militates against its football, as it does against many other things. We are in a sense set apart hero, and are as much out of tho football world as if wo were with Cronje on St. Helena. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, football has grown and flourished in this district. Once tho local Union oven had the temerity to send a representative team to Auckland to engage the redoubtable Northerners, but the Auckland Union have not yet been sportsmanlike enough to return the visit. There are legends to the effect that Wellington, Canterbury, and even Taranaki played on Gisborne soil, but that was back in tho days immediately following the arrival of Captain Cook’s team. Of late years, we have been left severely alone. Canterbury and Otago have passed us by on their way North, Prayers and even tears have been unavailing to induce outside Unions to allow their travelling teams to come ashore from tho boat, and give tho benighted inhabitants of Poverty Bay an object lesson in modern Rugby, And so we have been left to blindly struggle alone as best wo may.

Now and again a denizen from tho great outside world drops down on our little colony, and smiles indulgently as he watches our Rugby. Several of these favorod sons of fortune have told me confidentially that we are ten years behind the times here in our football. Invitations to join one of our local clubs, take off their coats, and instruct us as to how the up-to-date game should bo played, have never yet been accepted with alacrity, and so we gain nothing from these critics. Next Saturday it will be interesting to take stock and see how far we really are behind the times. The Hawke’s Bay team should be seen at the very best advantage. Our opponents have met Canterbury, Wanganui, Southland, and Otago on the Napier ground this season, and, apart from the first-class combination they should possess, they will have a distinct advantage over the local men in having rubbed shoulders so recently with good teams like Canterbury, Otago, and Southland.