Limited Football Fare in 1929 Representative Games

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 731, 2 August 1929, Page 14

Limited Football Fare in 1929 Representative Games

Auckland will Have Fairly Quiet Rep. Season at Home —Ranfurly Shield Clash at Masterton Next Week is Rugby’s Big Event —Canterbury and Wellington will be Here Later on —League Code has Big Inter-Island Game in September — No Challengers in Sight for Soccer Premiership.

A UCKLAXD’S three football codes, Union Kugby, League Kugby and Soccer, have programmed their representative fixture lists for this season. Nothing can really be marked as ‘•special,” each code featuring about its usual quota of representative games.

Union Rugby set the ball rolling- for its representative season as early as June 3, the King's Birthday, when

Auckland met Waikato at Hamilton. At Masterton tomorrow week, Auckland will participate in its first Ranfurly Shield match since 1926. In that year Auckland had an unsuccessful attempt to wrest the Shield from Hawke’s Bay when a side taken over by Mr. T. Buchanan was defeated by the doughty Bayites to the tune of 41 to 11. This defeat Auckland avenged the following year, when it beat Hawke’s Bay at Auckland by 26 points to 0. In the meantime the Bay had lost the Shield to its old rivals, Wairarapa, which is still in possession. Although Wairarapa had the distinction of holding the Shield, it was beaten that year by Auckland by a nine-point margin, but it was not a Shield game. That season (1927) was one of the most successful that ever fell to the lot of the Auckland Province. The team played ten matches and won ten. It scored 241 points and had only 33 put up against. Surely a wonderful record, and one that well entitled the side to be termed premiers of New Zealand, notwithstanding.. Wairarapa's possession of the Ranfurly Shield. In addition to the _ match against Wairarapa, Auckland’s representative season for this year will be made up of matches against the following provinces—(the venue being given in parentheses) : —Waikato (Auckland), Hawke’s Bay XAuckland), Canterbury (Auckland). King Country (Te Kuiti), Taranaki (New Plymouth), Wellington (Auckland). Of these matches both those against Wairarapa and Canterbury promise to be stirring and most interesting contests. The Southern Province possesses a number of prominent All Blacks, whose services will no doubt be called upon, and providing Canterbury can get its best side away, a great struggle must undoubtedly take place. * * * Last Saturday ushered in Auckland’s League Rugby representative season, when South Auckland met, and went down to Auckland in a Northern Union Challenge Cup match. Considering it was staged in conditions not conducive to that open style of play which characterises the 13-a-side game, it was a fine match, and mado a good kick-off to a representative season which, although not very big, promises to be quite interesting. Having retained the Northern Union Cup, Auckland will now be faced with challengers from the Northland League and Canterbury. In the space of a very short time, the League

game has been built up to a sound standard in the north of Auckland. Although this island invariably wins the North v. South Island game, staged annually, the football exhibited is usually imbued with a mild international flavour and seldom fails to attract a big gate. This match is lixed for the first Saturday in September, succeeding the Canterbury game late in August. It is hoped that this season the selectors will bring out more new faces in the representative sides than they have done in the past. Being the stronghold of the code in the Dominion, Auckland should, and can, well afford to do this. With a tour of a New Zealand side to Australia in view for next season, the bringing on of younger players is most important to the welfare of the game. For 33 years, from 1593 to 1925, the interprovincial Soccer premiership followed possession of the Brown Shield. Both minor and major provinces challenged freely for it. With the exception of the five seasons’ hiatus during the Great War, challenge matches were plentiful, and over the long spread of years Auckland held by far the strongest grip on the emblem of supremacy. In 1926 the Football Association of England presented the N.Z.F.A. with a handsome solid silver trophy as a token of god will and encouragement. The New Zealand Council decided to allot the new plate for competition among the major provinces only, and until last season it was played for on the same lines as the Plunket Shield at cricket. The English trophy was then placed under challenge conditions, and Auckland’s unbroken hold of it ended when it was handed back under the new rules. Wellington, by its willingness to guarantee challengers’ expenses, then became possessors of the trophy, but after stalling off a challenge by

Canterbury, it was lost to Auckland again.

Last season saw Auckland retain its supremacy in a drawn game, and on July -0 last another challenge by AVellington was successfully withstood at Blandfo.rd Pa rk. Otago was due for a challenge tomorrow, but through some misunderstanding and confusion at this end the visit was abandoned although the team had been selected and leave granted the players. Since Mr. Phil Neesham was appointed solo selector in 192b* the-Auck-land representatives have been undefeated in inter-provincial matches, and JDan Jones has been a most capable and popular captain in leading the blue and whites to victory.