Rugby Football.

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 287, 30 December 1905, Page 20

Rugby Football.

With the match against Swansea tomorrow (Saturday) the tour of the New Zealand team at Home concludes. That it has been, a success beyond even, the expectations of the most ardent supporter ot New Zealand football no one will deny, and the greatest of credit is due to the "All Blacks" for their great performances. The only defeat sustained on the tour is the three-point victory by the Welsh internationals, and 1 this, is accounted for in part by the possibility that the New Zealanders did nob show their true form because of staleness. The latest papers to hand tell us of boils, ricked knees, strained shoulders, and co on. Many were hopin'- that the probable match with Great Britain would be changed to a return game with Wales, but I don't think there is much chance of such a game being played. The record 1 of the team is one of which the colony shonld be proud, and the venture has proved an undoubted financial success. That the tour has done the Rugby game a lot of good in the Old Country is very apparent, and if it will be the means of reviving the public interest in the goad old Rugby code, it will have served a splendid purpose. We in New Zealand are staunch believers in keeping the game as purely amateur as possible, and at the same time keeping it as clean as can be. That our fiiends in the Homeland may be able to do the same, and at the came time keep the public interested in the game, is the sincere wish of those that sent the team forth from the colony. In common with others, I extend my congratulations to the New Zealand team, with the hope that arrangements will be made as early as possible to give the boys a fitting reception on their return to the colony. If you talk football in Edinburgh just now, the average Scot will hit you with the heaviest thing m Scotland, an article in the "Edinburgh Review. ' They were so fearfully canny when the New Zealanders went to play there, that they would accept no responsibility. They might lose bawbees, ye ken I So they said* tTip^ would! let the New Zealanders run the show and taike the gate money. That was the niggest bonanza in v the way of ready cash the Fernlanders struck, and the football people in Edinburgh have been weepomg night and day without ceasing ever since. It is even reported that one Scotsman has turned teetotal over it, but I cannot believe it. Manager Diron, of the New Zealand football team, writing on November 11th, by the mail just in, says : — "We are not doing so badly, are we : 17 matches won, 554 pointß to 15? If we can avoid stateness and accidents, I don't see how we can lose many matches. Victories are getting quite monotonous now." Anent the Surrey match, Mr. Arthur Davenport, a music-hall artist at the Palace Theatre, London, added the following verse to one of his songs — But we won't give in yet, For we must not forget

That we still have some whistles to spare; Surrey ought to have won, And, in fact, would have done, But the referee ran short of air. "But, when all is said or done, there is no getting away from the solid truth that the magnificent manipulating skill, the superb speed, the. wonderful combination and adaptability of the New Zealanders are the main features ot tiheir play, and the reasons of their sucoess .»_«Athletic News." Eugen Sandow says. — "The triumph of the New Zealander is the triumph of the trained athlete. Every man I saw stripped was a model of what a footballer should be. Ido not think any team of English footballers could show such fine developmental of the whole muscular system. My inspection of tlie men clinched mv conviction that physical development is the secret or the team's success." In another paper Sandow offers to train a team to beat the New Zealanders, but they must be sound and crack players. Just so! A batteied old John Bull is made to remark to a New Zealand footballer by the "Daily Mirror": — "It's all very well, but no wonder you win. I'm a worker, who occasionally plays a little football, while you're a footballer who occasionally does a little work." Which is a libel on the ordinary New Zealand footballer, who_ has to jwerk at his ordmaiy occupation for a living. The "Daily Mirror" • — "Three such fliers as Wallace, Smith, and McGregor have probably not been seen m conjunction since the days of Evanson, Bolton, and Wade." A letter received! by one of the team is printed in the "Daily Mirror," and is worth reproducing: — "Dear Mr. I thought you played a splendid game yesterday, and admire you so much. Do you think you could possibly return my admiration? If so, meet me at six to-morrow at 3 and, so that I may know you. wear a white and crimson buttonhole."