FOOTBALL.
NOTES BY FULL BACK
Our oH friend Colin Gilray played in the Bcottish trial match Anglo-Scots v. Provinces at Inverleith on December 21. The^ «x-Otago University and representative three-quarter scored two out of three tries. ■Gilray's side won by 3 goals to a try.
At the conclusion of the British team's .lour of New Zealand the Britishers will ,-rieit Sydney, playing matches against New iSouth Wales and Queensland. No dates lhave yet been arranged. At the latter end of last Rugby sea-son, ©ne of the Cardiff forwards, who played ftgainst the amateur Ail Black combination, (took up his residence in Wellington. He Rutendf. to remain, and will probably play 'lor Poneke during the coming sc ".son. Another from the Old Country will also be found in the Poneke team.
At a meeting of the English Rugby Union Committee held on December 21. it was decided to send a team to New Zealand in the spring of next year. Mr R. L. Aston, the old English International, now a maeier at Tonbridge School, was elected to fill the vacancy on the committee caused ■by the death of the late Mr John Hammond.
Rugby footballers from New South Wales *ire to "visit Engand this year for certain. On February 4 Mr W. W. Hill, secretary of the N.S.W. Union, despatched a cablegram accepting the invitation and the terms offered for a tour of Great Britain. The union in England has also been asked to arrange a programme of 28 matches, Jthe first to be played in September. It 16' understood that there will be test imatohes with England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. A game m France hae also ■been arranged, and inquiries are being . omade with a view of playing matches in Panada and the United States on the return ijourney. Writing in the Sporting Life of the English Rugby Union's decision to send_ a team to New Zealand this year, Harrrish Stuart says:— "lt wae the only thing we could do," was what one member of the union said to the writer in a casual reference to the tour, so that one may presume that the committee were unanimous on the point. No announcement was made as ro /whether the uniop has now secured the 'co-operation of the other unions, but I am in a position to state that the attitude of the Scottish and Irish Uuions remains unchanged. Their attitude is in the meantime passive, though I understand /that they will probably refuse to j»ive leave to take part ir the tour tc players under their respective jurisdiction. Should tliie (prove to be the case the Scottish and Irish [Unions will merely be consistent. They maintain that these colonial tours encourage professionalism, and are not for the permanent good of the game as an amateur pastime. The English Union believes, on the other hand, that they popularise the game. My own view is that they popularise it foi a time as a spectacle merely. Time will show which view is right. There 19 much to be said for both sides of a very wide question, while it must be remembered that the circumstances in England are not the same as in Ireland and •Scotland. That, curiously enough, is the •'strongest point in the Scottish and Iribh tease, for only England and Wales are in »ny serious danger from " the rebels." Scotland and Ireland can only suffer indirectly. Their club football cannot be affected.
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Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 58
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574FOOTBALL. Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 58
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