FOOTBALL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 229, 15 February 1913, Page 7

FOOTBALL.

SPRINGBOKS' NEXT TOUR. •'Our successes are bound to have an influence for good on the game here," writes E. J. L. Plammauer, of Capetown, in The Latest. All over South Africa Rugby should go ahead and improve. We have a reputation to maintain; we have a high standard to live up to. It will he some years before another team goes on tour—it is more than likely that our next journey will be to a sister colony, New Zealand, for they have invited us there, and then I hope to see Natal directly represented in the team."

The visit of the famous South Africans to New Zealand and Australia would bring about a great revival of the Union game in both countries. The interest in a match between New Zealand and South Africa would be very great rill over the Rugby world.

PAYMENT OP PLAYERS. The famous argument of payment for loss of time, which is always with us i in New Zealand, has been revived in | England by the English international, | R. W. Poulton, advocating payment for "broken time." To this the Athletic News makes reply: —"The old Oxonian, if lie be a logician at all, may be able to j pen an article convincing tp those who arc as unfamiliar as himself with what 1 "broken time' means, and what it may lead' to. It may seem to them very good sentiment to suggest that the poor working mail cannot afford time to spend playing football—that it is hard lines he should" be out of pocket for his pains. The old problem of professionalism is merely opened up afresh. Men may argue till Doomsday on this subject, and still get no further forward. Two assertions will always be made —(1) Professionalism is good and reasonable; (2) amateurism is likewise good and reasonable; but there can be no medium. The one or the other, but no 'broken time.' Let R. W. Poulton call in at some gathering of the Northern Rugby Union he will be made welcome—and seek the opinions of the older officials of that body regarding "broken time.' He will be told how impossible is the plan; how it is merely the beginning of a process which produces never-ending abuses. 'Broken time' and 'enforced employment' were tried by the Northern Union. The favorable arguments in each case seemed reasonable, but they would not w T Olk .-any more than the players!—and so ont-and-out professionalism was happily legalised. Amateurs there still are in (.lie Northern Rugby Union, but there :ire no broken time' men! There is 110 •broken time' in any recognised amateur sport that we know of in this country, and we were decidedly surprised to read the Powltonian sentiments. They weie surely written without any consideration of circumstances; for so many othci sports are involved besides Rugby football as to make a general system of payments in the latter sport absolutely impossible."

COLONIAL PLAYERS' ABILITY. Tlic English critics are slow to recognise ability in colonial touring teams, and, if recognising, are prone to withhold praise until the conviction is forced upon them. It was so in the case of. the All Blacks, w]io were a long time in forcing their nierits on English writers of the game, although one knows that every opportunity was afforded. It was so in the ease of the South Africans of IMG. and has again been exemplified in the case of the South Africans of this season of grace. Only after the defeat of Scotland, Ireland and Wales did the English critics admit superiority in the South Africans, and then in their haste, to do justice so belated they ran to extreme-. For instance, after the match aan i nst Ireland we find them describing the Springboks' forwards as "immense,"' the half-hacks "unnaturally clever," the