Rugby Football.

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 278, 28 October 1905, Page 20

Rugby Football.

The newspaper clippings reported from Sydney early in the week caiay the good news that English critics place the New Zealand forwards on a par with the Irish Internationals, and the back division as equal to the Welsh. Better praise cannot be expected or desired, and makes, one faun to accept the testimony that "it is difficult to believe what British team will cheak the New Zealanders' victorious career. ' The papers with the full particulars will be along this way next week. The cable received during the week that the New Zealanders were only being pitted against untrained amateur teams was a poor attempt to belittle the performances of the New Zealanders. All footballers under the rules of the English Rugby Unaon are amateurs, therefore the New Zealanders cannot be pitted against other than, amateur players— amateurs only in the sense that they receive no remuneration for their services as players. The only professionals — that is, players who are kept in employment for playing for certain clubs— taking part in Rugby football do so under what is known as the Northern Rugby Football Union, whose headquarters are m Yorkshire. They were originally part or the English Union, but it was this phase of professionalism that caused them to break away from the mam body. The New Zealanders will not play against any of the teams drawn from the Northern Union, and it is only right that it should be so. We m New Zealand believe in the game being kept purely amateur, and the team now touring the Old Country is as much .an amateur team as those they are playing against. The dates of the international matches at Home are —November 18th v. Scotland, November 25th v. Ireland, December 2nd v. England, December 16th v. Wales.