FOOTBALL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8044, 3 February 1906, Page 3

FOOTBALL.

Referring to the defeat of the New Zealand Football team by the Welsh representatives, the London " Daily Chronicle," in its report of the match, says:—"Wales did more than any other country had done, and, as far as they were concerned, did it well; but one need not be charged with posing as a New Zealand apologist in pointing out a few significant truths in explanation, if not extenuation, of the defeat. On the one hand, a team jaded, worn with the strenuous football life, and the no less trying experience of constant travelling; a team engaged in a struggle taxing virility to the utmost, visiting the c.inip of an opposition which did not leave its antagonism nominal. On the other side, a team stimulated by the warm wave of enthusiasm tided up by the people around, every piayer keen, alert, determined. in the middle a referee who, however conscientious by desire, was bound to .experience difficulty in being strictly judicial. No doubt the chief explanation of the New Zealanders' defeat is to be found in a staleness which must have evidenced itself before had they encountered a foe almost as strong as themselves. Wales at least merits the credit for being sufficiently strong to benefit from the bardships which beset the colonial.:'' perpetual programme ill a game which breeds casualties, but the fact that Wales did nothing more than just win, and that one is left dubious of the moral legitimacy of that victory, are circumstances that protect this great New Zealand team and their great record from any argument of belittlement. On the run of the game, a game characterised by terrible fierceness, Wales nobly earned her triumph, yet her good fortune in the state of siege in the second half was nothing short of remarkable. . . It is an easy thing to say that the colonials were as good or as bad as Wales permitted them to be, but that theory can apply only to the lirst half, in .vliicli the Welsh forwards got the ball live times in seven, and exempted themselves from the danger of a characteristic colonial passing movement; in fact, the colonials were seldom in the Welsh twenty-fives. In the second half the New Zealanders beat themselves —with assistance."