Sporting.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 227, 22 January 1876, Page 22

Sporting.

The Dunedin crew, with their boat, a batswing, arrived per Taupo yesterday afternoon. The boat was placed in the shed of the Wellington Club. A cricket match will be played at Pahautanui on Saturday next (Anniversary Day) between the Thorndon and Pahautanui Clubs. The following are the Thorndon eleven : Burbush, Love, Lambert, Osgood, Daly, Harris, Kuchen, Dobbie, Gascoine, Freeman, Godfrey. H. Clax-k, umpire ; scorer, F. Sampson. The final entries for the foi'thcoming regatta were accepted last night at the Pier Hotel, as follows :—Maiden four-oared race (inrigged)— Queen’s Club Eclipse, Wellington and Star Clubs. Coasting race—Cynthia, Greenfield and Stewart; Falcon, Captain Fisk ; Aurora, Captain Pearce ; Herald, Captain Thomas ; Planet, Mr. Cross. Second-class Yacht Race. —Red .Jacket, Columbia, Garibaldi, and Flirt. Ships’ Gig Race. —St. Leonards. Scliiehallion, Howrah, Avalanche, and Pleiades. Ships’ Sailing Race.—St. Leonards, Schiehallion, Howrah, Avalanche, and Pleiades.

The stewai’ds of the Wellington Jockey Club met on Monday, and finally closed up all matters in connection with the last races. It was decided not to hold an autumn meeting, and as there will be no necsssity for the services of a secretai-y for some time to come, the then holder of the office was relieved of his responsibility. Pending the time when a fresh appointment may become necessary, all communications are to be addressed to Mr. Geoi-ge, the hon. treasurer.

The regatta committee met on Satxxrday. They accepted tenders for sheds at Petone, and adopted rules, as brought up by a subcommittee, with some amendments. The course for the first day’s events —Nos. 1 to 6 will be from near the mouth of the Hutt river to a point this side of the roadman swhare, Hutt road, being the same as that rowed over last year, but the starting place will he at the reverse end, and for the sailing races the boats will stai't from a line bearing north and south off Queen’s Whax-f ; go round the buoy-boat to the south of Somes Island, leaving Somes Island on their stax-board hand ; and round the buoy off Korokoro, twice round. Second-class yachts, once round, same course. The tonnage limit for this race was increased to eight tons. If the weather on Saturday prove favorable, the first race will be started at noon. A subcommittee was appointed to go to the Hutt, and

telegraph from there on Saturday morning to the committee in town as to the state of the course ; the general committee to meet in town at Mr. Hunter’s rooms, at eight a.m. on Saturday. If a postponement should be decided on, two guns will be fired at nine a.m. to announce the fact to the public.

REGARDING THE ROWING. (by an old foget.) It is with all humility that I venture a few words on what is now the subject of the hour amongst us, for I have not seen a race such as the° Intei’provincial Race since I pulled in a somewhat similar one myself, and have seen little of l’owing since the same time. How long ago that was a tinge of vanity and a few hairs still left to redeem my pate from utter baldness must prevent my telling. It was long enough ago, however, to have been at a time when somemembersof our junior fours were in long clothes. In oi'dei' to fix a date, let us say it was in the year when Plahcus was Consul. This being so, I fear I shall savor of the old fogey in my remarks on rowing, and, having an antiquated respect for the English language, my writing may not, as one would say “coruscate” sufficiently to suit the taste which it is apparent others are endeavoring to please. It is not, howevei-, with myself I have to do, so let me to business.

There were some fellows called Clasper, if I do not foi’get myself, several yeai’S ago in the North of England, who people at the time thought knew a little about rowing. They displayed their knowledge by winning championships singly and in crews, and doing things of this kind. Their opinions upon rowing might not stand the test of those I have seen expressed here, but in our time I know we used to think a good deal of them, and somehow I have a fancy that their style of rowing was a good one, and their advice on rowing should be good. Poor Mr. Casamajor, the aquatic editor of the Field, champion amateur sculler of his day, who died in the exercise of the sport he loved, had not a bad style about him. He brought a London four once to pull at a provincial regatta, where it matters not, in which they met a local crew that pushed them into a victory of a bare half length at the end of a desperate three miles race. Those fours rowed as fine a stroke as ever I cared to see. But again it would appear as if I was keeping away from my subject, and I desire to explain that I am not doing so but am mentioning these matters in order to show that, having seen tolerably good rowing, I may pei-haps be competent to judge of what is good or bad. And, therefore, let me say that that alone is the best rowing the style of which enables every mxxscle in the body that can be brought to bear upon the oar brought to bear upon it. There can be as much for ceput into a stroke out of the muscles overlaying your blade-bones and those on your chest and loins and running down your legs, as out of those in the fore-arm, or the big one that is called the biceps. When, therefore, in watching a crew you see oarsmen and boat all moving along like a piece of well and perfectly geared machinery, you cg,n say to yourself that that boat at least is carrying no waste power on board her ; that is to say, she has as little flesh, and blood, and bone as possible that are not doing their best to help carry their weight along. Well, applying these facts to the four crews now training for the great New Zealand Race, it will, I think be plain to anyone who has watched those crews at work that the Thames men make the muscles of their arms, and their fore-arms especially, do the major portion of their work. The Kaiapoi men work in such a loose, disjointed, unconnected sort of way that it is impossible to tell exactly what style of pulling. they aim at, and it is equally impossible to say that they have a good one. The Star Club crew are the first that can be said to understand rowing in wager-boats ; but they are so far excelled in this by°the Wellington Club crew, that as regards the prime ingredient for winners, these latter stand for the first. Of course, however, merely knowing how to row will not win a match—there must be sti*ength for the science to guide. The Thames men and the Wellington men only want looking at, in oi'dei* that this may be seen. The first are four as fine fellows as one could desire to see in a summer’s day, and the second are little behind them on the whole ; and so far. as two members of the crew are concerned are not behind them at all. Woods is a picture of a man—is a stroke of whom no crew need be ashamed. But the first crew may be compared to a steamer trying to drive her engines at utmost speed with one boiler, whilst the next are like a steamer that has both boilers in full swing, and carrying no superfluous iron is bringing all possible steam power to bear upon her shaft. Therefore, you will say the Wellington crew should be certain winners. So they should be, but that in a three mile race there are other little matters required besides strength andscience. Condition and guiding can win and can lose a race. The Thames men are in the pink of condition, and will be steered with judgment. The Wellington men apparently are in good condition, but this is the first time that Moore will have used the apparatus that supplies the place of a coxswain, and a flurry in starting may cause a fatal foul. The Thames men are at a disadvantage too with their boat, which is not up to their weight, and is therefore doubly disadvantageous with their style of rowing, which necessarily alternately picks her up and dips her down instead of giving her the regular even motion which is to be found in the Wellington and the Star boats. Now then, I may draw the conclusion that the Interprovincial race will be thus : —lt must be a hard fought fight from beginning to end. The Thames men, despite their bad style, despite their indifferent boat, pull their bad stroke, such as it is, well together, and will pull it from start to finish without getting pains in the backs of their heads, without a puckering around their mouths, or without their lips feeling as if a hot wind had blown on them for a hundred years. And their condition is so good too that their stroke, if need be, can quicken up and

call on them for” a spurt without feeling hopelessly that one man in the boat is baked, and has not an ounce of strength left in him to give his oar. They will not win (bar accidents), but they will not be beaten by a spurt at the start and a lead gained in the first mile. Theirs will be the bull dog style, a style which holds and cannot be shaken off, and unless the winning crew is safe in its condition, it will be a losing one—which is “ a bull, but expresses my meaning sufficiently. Now, against this it is no use to tell me of such a four having done a mile in such a time, or of such another four having also done a mile in such a time. As in the old duelling days when the young gentleman boasted that he could hit the stem of a wineglass at twelve paces, and was answered, “ But the wineglass had not a pistol in its hand,” so I answer this kind of talk by saying that the test wanted is a three-mile course against a crew that will never flinch nor falter. That is what has to be pulled against, and it remains to be seen who are to pull against it. The Kaiapoi crew will have the wind and bottom, but with their had style have not even the recompensing uniformity of badnessnor the strength possessed by the Thames men. Their boat is a beauty, and suited to their weight, but this will not put them in front. The Star Club cannot, I fear, stay the distance, but should they do so, they cannot, I believe, stay it as well or pull as strongly as the Wellington crew, who, so far as appearances go, with even their short time in absolute training, will have wind and bottom enough, if not to quite shake off the boat that will make the race a race; at least to keep her so far behind as to bring themselves in first. But all this is said with the proviso, “bar accidents,” and it would not surprise me if, as I said before, there were an accident in the way of fouling. Ido not say there will be. Ido not think there will be, but it would not surprise me if there were. I have but a few casual remarks to make to-day. The Wellington Club crew went out on Thursday for the first time together in the Dolly Yarden, the boat in which they will pull the race. Their doing so was interesting, mostly because it afforded us an opportunity of seeing how Moore would manage the steering apparatus. Otherwise the Dolly Varden only served to show to even greater advantage the merits of the fine crew whom I have chosen (rightly or wrongly) for first place. As concerns the steering, we may be quit of our apprehensions. To be sure Moore had not to steer in a race, and therefore his head was scarcely tested, but there is pretty plain evidence that even in the excitement of a race he will be a cool hand, and he manages his steering gear very well indeed, and will doubtless manage it even much better on the day of the race. Then, too, he has the advantage that his crew have, in the drawing for places, got the outside one from the shore, or what will in the actual race practically send them over the inside or shortest course. That being so, he has least chance of a foul, and as they have two good miles to go before coming to the only bend, he ought to be able to steer round the mark boat without difficulty. All four men in the boat, too, now look quite fit to last ; but, as everyone has said, and as is quite true in this respect, they are merely coming up to the standard of the Thames men. The Kaiapoi crew (I hope I do not wrong them) do not seem to be impressed with the necessity for doing much work. They largely content themselves with spins to the Point and back, with an intermediate rest. It is possible that knowing how hardly rowed a race that for the Interprovincial Championship will be, they do not intend to go for it in reality, but will reserve themselves for the second contest of string-test gigs, when, by being fresh, they may hope to gain an advantage over crews that will have already done three miles at their very best. In this respect, they are only likely to have two fresh crews amongst the contestants, but neither they nor the fresh ones will furnish the winners. The fresh ones will be the Otago crew, and a local crew in the Eclipse. The Otago men have a by no means light, and pretty high “ship” of 35ft. overall, with a great spring in her keel. Their boat is an indifferent one altogether, and their rowing is

of the same class. Stroke is occupied by a persistent effort to keep his chin touching his breastbone, an effort in which he is tolerably successful. The local crew have a variegated method of pulling interesting as fancy work, hut scarcely so as likely to be productive of successful results.

I have just heard that which, from the authority that has given it to me, I cannot refuse to believe, but which I would fain put no faith in. That curse of all honorable contest in racing or contesting, whether between horses or human beings, the book-making fraternity, have, I regret to say, put in an appearance in Wellington, and there are not wanting symptoms of their desire to make the Interprovincial Race too similar to many a horse race, namely, that not the best shall win, but that competitor selected by the bookmakers. These gentlemen started operations yesterday by wanting to back a certain boat, the crew of which are prime favorites ; but they suddenly turned round, after having hung about a certain boatshed, and interviewed a rower or rowers, and commenced offering to lay 50 to 5 against the very boat they were previously prepared to back. Now, I am not going to say another word on this subject at present, though I shall have no fear of doing so to-morrow should I find this gentle little intimation of no effect; but I may tell all parties that Wellington has every confidence in its own men, and that should there be a suspicion of foul play, there will be no difficulty in ascertaining its origin. This little piece of publicity may have the desired effect, and, in the language of those who live by “ diddling,” may “ spoil their little games.” I hope it may. I trust I shall have need to write no more. Boat racing has not yet become connected here with blackguardism in betting, and let those who would endeavour to connect the two beware. 0. F.

RIFLE FIRING. The rifle match between the Treasury and Audit departments came off on Saturday afternoon last, an I, as was pretty generally expected, resulted in a victory for the latter. The majority, however, was a very hare one, being only eleven points, and of this number seven were obtained in the last round. Altogether the match was very closely contested throughout, and caused considerable excitement amongst the large number of spectators who were present to witness it. The highest individual score (69 points) was made by McCreclie, for the Treasury, who shot remarkably well, firing through without a single miss, and making twenty-five at 300 and twenty-four at 400 yards. O’Connor and Halse, for the Audit, came next with sixty-six and sixty-three respectively. The following are the scores :

Majority for the Audit, 11. On Tuesday morning the Wellington City Rifles fired for the qualification of district representatives, with the following result :

We are glad to find that Wellington is likely to be well represented this year at the colonial prize firing. The Artillery have now completed their firing for choice of representatives for the carbine matches, and the result is very satisfactory, four members having qualified themselves to compete. According to the regulations two courses of firing had to be gone through, with an interval of not less than three days, at ranges 200, 250, 300, and 400 yards, seven shots at each range ; third-class targets at the three former, and second-class at the latter, the minimum number of points required as a qualification being 160 in the two competitions. The Artillery company may therefore be congratulated on the good scoring of their representatives, which is as follows: —

INTERPROYINCIAL CRICKET MATCH. CANTERBURY V. OTAGO. Dunedin, Wednesday. The twelfth annual interprovincial cricket match, between Otago and Canterbury, commenced at twelve o’clock to-day. The weather was fine, with a strong N.E. breeze. The ground was in splendid order. Owing to its being mail day the attendance at the commencement of the game was anything but good, but as the day wore on the number increased, including a fair sprinkling of the fair sex. Canterbury won the toss, and elected to go to the wickets. H. E. Godby was elected captain of the Otago team. Ollivier and Corfe went first to the wickets, and faced the bowling of Paramore. Ollivier opened with a cut for two. Lathbury took the bowling at the other end. Corfe snicked the second in the over for a single, and then, both men getting confidence, commenced scoring carefully. After eighteen overs, Godby was sent on to relieve Paramore, and tried slows, but the effect of this, however, was no improvement, for both men sent the leather all over the field for twos and threes. At a quarter past one, half a century was on the telegraph board. After 64 runs had been scored, Corfe tiffed one of Godby’s slows into the wicket-keeper’s hands, which was carefully held. Corfe played well for 26 —one wicket down for 64. Neilson took Corfe’s place at the wicket, and Downes supplied Godby’s place in bowling. After 3 overs, Neilson retired with a duck’s egg from one of Downes’ round-arms, 0-2-0-66. Lee next followed, and commenced operations by a neat cut for two. He then followed with two singles and a couple, when luncheon was called at 2 o’clock. Betting is 2 to 1 on Canterbury. After lunch, M. J. Godby commenced the bowling, Downes taking the other end. Lee made a carefully played 13, when he was given leg-before-wicket from one of Downes’ balls —3-13-94. Baker followed, and was taken first ball by Downes with a regular shooter, placing two wickets and a maiden to his credit —O-4-0-94. J. Fowler then supplied Baker’s place, who was caught by Collinson for no-thing—s-0-94. E. Fowler came next, and after running up two’s and single’s made the first drive of the day for four. He gave three catches to Godby, who refused two, but took the last, Fowler made his 24 in good style and rapidly. 6-24-137. Ashley faced Downes, and made two from first ball. After a few more singles, Ollivier who had been playing very carefully all through, put a ball into Sutcliffe s , hands, which that gentleman held. Ollivier s score of 62 was put together in good style, and drew forth considerable applause from the spectators. 7-62-143. Wood then joined Ashley, and was bowled by Latlibury for a single. S-l-144. Sweete took Wood's place, and after scoring one, was nicely bowled by Lathbury; Alfe

followed, but before scoring, Ashley was caught cleverly by Sutcliffe, after scoring six, the Canterbury score being 149. Finished at four o’clock.

Otago then went to the wickets, Godby sending in M. Godby and Paramore, the former, after playing a good 12, was foolishly run out. Collinson followed him. They then played most steadily for 17 each. Canterbury kept changing their bowling, but it was no use, for they were both evidently, in for a score. When time was called, the score stood, including extras, 56. Both men were loudly cheered on entering the pavilion.

McCreclie .. TREASURY. 200 300 20 25 400 24 Total. 69 Taylor 16 12 21 49 Smith 12 17 19 4S Eyton 21 15 11 47 Meacliam .. 16 14 S 38 Broughton.. 10 11 S 3S Batkin 9 11 16 36 Davies 9 10 C 25 Totals .. .. 122 115 113 350 O’Connor .. AUDIT 22 24 20 66 Halse 19 23 21 63 Webb 21 17 13 51 Buck 20 18 12 50 Anderson .. 16 13 11 40 Churton 11 15 12 38 Palliser S 9 14 31 Roskruge .. 0 9 13 22 Totals .. .. 117 128 116 361

200 400 500 600 Total. Lieut. Scott 23 25 16 19 81 Private Prouse .. 21 IS 20 19 78 Captain Crowe .. 24 21 25 5 75 Sergeant Harris .. 21 22 19 12 74 Private Ballinger IS 21 12 17 OS Private Christie .. 22 24 12 6 64 Private McGovern 16 15 16 14 61 Bandsman Valentine 9 13 16 16 54 Private Shean 23 10 10 10 53

First Second competition, competition. Total. Mason 93 87 180 Bannister so89 175 McCredie so 84 170 Stevens 88 79 107