A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 636, 12 April 1929, Page 6

A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

THIS year looks like being a “stay-at-home” season for most of the winter sports. The All Blacks will, of course, make their usual trip across the Tasman in June, and an Australian University Rugby team will visit the Dominion next month, but outside the possibility of an Australian hockey team making a flying visit to Xew Zealand on its way to a holiday jaunt in Fiji, the international menu is about as bare as the mythical cupboard of a good lady named Hubbard. The Rugby Union people can at least resign themselves to a quiet year, with pleasant anticipations of fresh attendance records being created by the visit of a British international side next season. Their energetic rivals of the League code are not so happy. It was hoped that following on the visit of the Englishmen last season, fresh playing interest would be stimulated by a projected tour to Australia. But that rosy prospect has received a set-back by the cabled announcement that Xew South Wales, which virtually rules the roost on the Other Side, is definitely against the proposal in view of the fact that Australia is sending a team to England this year. The hockey people may get a useful Australian side to come over, and there is optimistic whispering of what might be done for the flourishing girls’ sport of basketball, by bringing a team all the way from Canada. The real Cinderella of the winter sports party, however, seems to be the Soccer game, which does not seem to know quite what it wants’ in the way of outside attractions. The proposal to bring an Australian team to New Zealand this winter met with a frosty reception in the South, and no bouquets were thrown at the New Zealand Council when it mildly suggested as an alternative that the most deserving exponents of the round ball code should trip across to Sydney instead. It has been suggested, a little unkindly perhaps, that those who control our winter sports have in recent years been more like rival showmen than the elected representatives of thousands of players. not one in a hundred of whom derives any real benefit from international tours. Sport as a whole has become more of a great public spectacle than anything else since the war, hut it may be a blessing in disguise if the controlling authorities, through lack of international attractions, are compelled to get down to bedrock, and improve their games from within, not from outside. There are so many big matches and so-called representative contests these times that club competitions have leaded to become a secondary consideration with the powers that be, whereas they are really the backbone of the game.