FOOTBALL

Hokitika Guardian, 1 October 1927, Page 1

FOOTBALL

SOUTH AFRICAN TOUR. ANNOUNCING TIIE N.Z. TEAM. WELLINGTON, Sept. 29. On Friday evening Hie Management Committee of tlio New Zealand Rugby Union will meet to consider whether the names of the players selected for the South African tour should be announced after the final on Wednesday of next week. Earlier in the season the committee was of the opinion that the players’ names should not be announced, but at that stage it. had been not arranged that-the team should sail so early next season that further trials in 1928 would be an impossiblity. When it was thought that the All Blacks would not sail before June 3rd. it was felt that to announce the names of any certainties for the trip would be to expose the men to the risk of slackening in their training, whereas every man who felt that lie was in the running for the tour would be sure to keep himself fit if he knew that his form at the very commencement of next season would influence his chances of selection. At the same time some members ,of the Management Committee thought that there was the risk of training being overdone and the men becoming stale.

Consequently, in the altered circumstances, it is expected that the team will be published after tlie New Zealand Possible v. Probables match, and that some certainties may be announced on Saturday next. The New Zealand Union will arrange for the medical examination of the players at the beginning of next season, and will reserve the right to replace any men found to be unfit.

APR T. A. FLETCHER, MANAGER? “It is rumoured,” says “Full-Back” writing in tlie “Otago Daily Times,” “that Mr T. A. Fletcher, a member of the Management Committee of the New Zealand Rugby Union, is in the running for the position of manager of the New Zealand team, which is to tour South Africa. Mr Fletcher, it will be remembered, visited Victoria on behalf of the New Zealand Union in an endeavour to put life into tlie Rugby Union code over there. Many members of the provincial Unions have given long and faithful service in the interests of the Dominion’s winter pastime. and it would lid only fit and proper that one of them should lie coiSside red when the position comes to be filled. The Committee of Managementof the New Zealand Rugby Union has the appointment of manager, and it appears that it is likely to continue the practice it has practically always followed in the past, and keep the plums for itself.’’

TWO GREAT EMPIRES. “Just when the British Empire, under the vigorous guidance of Chatham, was laying its foundations firmly on the mighty waters, a great and epochmaking work on the ‘.Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” appeared in England from the pen of Edward Gibbon. From that day to this historians and jiolitieal philosophers have disputed as to tlie causes of that decline and fall. It would be untrue to say that there is complete agreement on the answer to this great question, or that any exhaustive answer has been given to it. But a general concurrence of opinion sums up the reply as, ‘corruption and disorder at the centre ,nnd atrophy at the circumference'; though there is much dispute as to the origin of these immediate causes. We are, apparently, safe in pointing out that neither ot these causes threatens the downfall of tlie British Empire.”—Professor Edward Jenks D.C.L., in the "“Contemporary Review.”