AUCKLAND AND THE SHIELD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 375, 8 June 1928, Page 10

AUCKLAND AND THE SHIELD

A NUMBER of Southern Rugby Unions appear to be curiously perturbed over Auckland’s eagerness to be matched for the Ranfurly Shield this season, but their irritation may be traced as much to a realisation of Auckland’s prowess as to any real concern about the merits or ethics of Auckland’s provisional challenges, which have been issued to all those unions whose teams it will meet in the course of its extensive and expensive Southern tour. Last year’s happenings furnish ample support for the view of the Auckland Rugby Union—that unless it makes due assurance of its position it may find the Shield gone from Canterbury before the Auckland team reaches Christchurch, and chances of a Shield match departed as well. Last season no fewer than four Unions held the Shield at different times, and there might have been a fifth if Otago, which beat Canterbury for the Shield just after the Canterbury team had borne it in triumph from Palmerston North, had first taken the precaution to have the match made a shield match. That Otago did' not do so was probably due to the fact that it considered its chances, with a team weakened by injuries on the Northern tour, to be more than ordinarily small. But Mr. Nelson, the Otago man who condemns Auckland’s policy as unsportsmanlike, was possibly one of the first to regret the oversight. There is ample justification for Auckland’s attitirde, even though later developments may show that the elaborate precautions were unnecessary, in the following facts: first, Auckland is spending a very large sum on a Southern tour, taking its team as far south as Invercargill; second, it was the only major team which preserved an unbeaten record last season. Under the circumstances it would be palpably unfair if Auckland were to be denied a shield match this year. J. G. M.