FOOTBALL

Taranaki Daily News, 29 July 1922, Page 3

FOOTBALL

PLAY IN TARANAKI. TO-DAY'S MATCHES. Tukapa v. Okaiawa, at Recreation Grounds, New Plymouth Hawera v. Patea. at Hawera. Opunake v. Clifton, at Opunake. Kaponga v. Walmate, at Kaponga. Senior B. Inglewood v. Star, at Inglewood. Old Boys v. Okato, at Racecourse ; 1.15 p.m. Eltham v. Lepperton. at Eltham. MATCHES FOR NEXT WEEK. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2. Hawera v. Tukapa, at New Plymouth (unemployment fund). SATURDAY, AUGUST 5. Taranaki v. Wanganui, at New Plymouth. POSITION OF THE TEAMS. The position of the teams is as follows: Senior A. K u -5 » ■2 £ = ~ £ 3 E © o as 0- 5 iJ o CU G, Q Tukapa 12 10 1 1 122 65 21 Okaiawa 12 10 2 0 129 60 20 Patea .... . 12 8 4 0 71 44 16 Hawera 11 6 3 2 103 65 14 Kaponga ..... 11 5 6 0 85 122 10 Clifton 11 5 6 0 118 81 10 Stratford .... 12 4 7 0 39 70 9 Opunake 11 1 8 2 59 136 4 Walmate .... 12 0 12 0 51 180 0 Senior B. Old Boys .... 12 10 2— 112 54 20 Inglewood ... 12 9 2 1 98 53 19 El th am 12 5 5 2 76 68 12 Okato 12 4 6 2 33 86 10 Star 12 3 7 2 69 76 8 Lepperton .... 12 9 3 55 84 3 REPRESENTATIVE MATCHES PLAYED. v. Wanganui, lost 12 to 9. v. Wellington, lost 13 to 3. B TEAM. ' v. Wanganui, won 18 to 13. REPRESENTATIVE FIXTURES ARRANGED. Aug. s.—v. Wanganui, at New Plymouth. Aug. 10.—v. Manawatu, at Stratford. | Aug. 12—v. Auckland; at New Plymouth. Aug. 19—v. Wellington, at Wellington. Aug. 23—v. South Canterbury, at Timaru. Aug. 26—v. Southland, at Invercargill. Aug. 30—v. Otago, at Dunedin. Sept.—2 v. Canterbury, at Christchurch. Sept. 16—v. Auckland, at Auckland. Home matches have to be arranged against Wairarapa, and possibly against North Auckland. NEW ZEALAND TEAM IN AUSTRALIA. July 29 v. N.S.W. August 2 v. Metropolitan. August 5 v. N.S.W. August 7 v. N.S.W. August 9 v. Metropolitan. ALL BLACKS’ MATCH. GROUND SOAKED BY RAIN By Telegraph.—Press Asin.—-Copyright. Received July 28, 8.30 p.m. Sydney, July 28. Further soaking rain has fallen, and there is every prospect of heavy going for tomorrow’s football.

TO-DAY’S MATCHES. It is safe to say that right throughout the province the thoughts of footballers and football enthusiasts will be centred in New Plymouth, where Okaiawa will meet Tukapa. in what may be termed the deciding match of the Taranaki provincial championship. Given fine weather there is certain to be a very large crowd, and an exciting game should result. The result of last Saturday’s matches placed Okaiawa within a point of Tukapa, the leaders, and should the southerners win tody the positions will be reversed. Many who have seen the southern men In action of late give them a great chance of success. There is no question but that Okaiawa is an improved team since Tukapa beat them by a narrow margin in the first round. They have a powerful set of forwards, who play a very hard game right through to the end, whilst their backs are very solid in defence, and, as played last Saturday with Guy and Johnson at five-eighths, are very dangerous in attack. Rye, on the wing, also loses no chance of scoring when he gets the ball. Though they have not been so prominent in the last two or three matches, Tukapa can be relied upon to put up a big fight to retain their lead. They expect to be stronger than has been the case for the last match or two. Their forwards have been strengthened, and the backs, with the exception of Kingston and Loveridge, should again be at full strength, Hart and Ennis having recovered from their injuries. If the game is kept as clean as the Patea and Hawera games were, the public should see a magnificent contest. At Hawera, the local team will meet Patea. and the men of the river port are sanguine of turning the tables on last year’s champions. The other matches in the A grade are Clifton v. Opunake. at Opunake, and Kaponga v. Wfcimate. at Kaponga. In the B grade. Old Boys will meet Okato. In order to enable the teams to view the big match, the venue of the B grade match has been altered to the racecourse at 1.15 p.m. Okato expect to bring in a strong team, their forwards being strengthened by the Inclusion of L. Carey, and the leaders will have to move if they wish to avert defeat. Inglewood have to meet Star at Inglewood , and Eltham v. Lepperton meet at Eltham. LAST WEEK S MATCHES. The matches last week effected a considerable change in the positions of the leaders of the A and B grades. In the former. Tukapa were defeated by Patea. and Hawera by Okaiawa, and as a result the three points margin between Tukapa and Okaiawa has been reduced to one, and consequently the meeting of the two teams at New Plymouth to-day has considerable added interest. Had the matches gone the other way. Okaiawa would have been five points in arrears and the southern club would have had difficulty in raising a team to visit New Plymouth, but with championship honors in sight, players will sacrifice a good deal to make the trip, and the strongest fifteen possible will represent the club. Okaiawa beat Hawera by good generalship. The scores were 9 points, represented by two penalty goals an! a try, to six points (two tries), and had Hawera shown the same resource as the Okaiawa skipper the scores might easily have been reversed. From a football point of view, the game was disappointing, being mostly confined to the forwards, the backs, Hawera’s particularly, giving only occasional glimpses of efficient work. Indeed, Hawera backs, especially Horton and Purcell, were very unconvincing. Okaiawa backs had more finish. This was noticeable when Guy was shifted up to five-eighths. He and Johnson worked well together, making some great movements and being solid in da*

fence. They fed Rye whenever possible, and this speedy winger, who had been shifted on to the opposite wing from Wilkinson, scored. This was generalship again, for had Wilkinson been also shifted Rye would probably not have scored, and Wilkinson also would have put the finishing 'touches to a passing bout that Jenkins, who was playing wing threequarter, could not have completed owing to possessing insufficient pace. Roberts played a solid game, as did Robertson for Okaiawa. Hawera were without the services of Paterson, Osborne playing Whittington wing forward, while Okaiawa were without B. Roberta, but o nthe results the combination of Guy and Johnson is undoubtedly an Improvement.

THE B COMPETITION. Of twenty-six points registered in the Eltham-Star match twenty were the result of goal-kicking, which, apart from the acci-dent-breaking record the game provided, was an outstanding feature. Dunford gained the whole nine points for his side by penalty kicks, all of which were splendid efforts, unade from about ten yards inside the half-way line. King (of Eltham) also proved himself an adept at goal kicking, and sent two splendid penalties over the bar, a couple of other attempts narrowly failing. Besides this he scored a try which he converted, thus scoring eleven points out of the teams total of seventeen. The visit of the Wanganui team to New Plymouth on Saturday next is evoking keen interest. It is just thirteen years since the men of the River City visited New Plyimouth, though they have been to Taranaki practE cally every year since, the majority of the matches having been played at Hawera during Winter Show week. Wanganui is a popular team in Taranaki, and the match should attract a. great crowd, particularly in view of the fact that at Wanganui the Taranaki team had to submit to defeat earlier in the season. Taranaki on this occasion hope to reverse the positions, but they will have to play their best to do so, as Wanganui will bring a strong team to New Plymouth.

The Taranaki selectors will view the Tu-kapa-Okaiawa match to-day, and after that the team to do battle against Wanganui will be selected. It is undrestood that a number 'of players have been communicated with to ascertain if they are available to make the southern trip, and the team, to play Wanganui will be selected from those that are available, the idea being to give the team a chance of getting some combination before they meet Wellington. The matches against Wanganui, Manawatu and Auckland should be ideal for this purpose. Mr. F. Julian has been selected to referee in the Taranaki-Wanganui match. Taranaki has challenged Wellington for the Ranfurly Shield. Otago has also challenged Taranaki for the shield if Taranaki is the holder when the teams meet at Dunedin next month. It is probable that the proposal to send a B team on tour will have to be abandoned this year. The idea was to send the team as far as Levin, playing Horowhenua and Wanganui, with possibly a. match on the MainTrunk. So as not to dislocate club football any more than possible the trip would have to be made during the next couple of weeks while Wanganui and Auckland were visiting Taranaki. August 5, the date selected, does not suit Wanganui, and it will be impossible for Taranaki to get a team away later. The New Zealand team in Australia play their first match of the tour to-day, when they meet New South Wales. H. Masters has been chosen in the New Zealand fifteen. The New Zealand team plays five matches in ten days, and returns to New Zealand about the middle of August. The Taranaki members should be available for the southern tour, as on August 19, the same date as Taranaki meets Wellington, a match is being arranged at Wellington between the New Zealand team and the Maori team that recently toured Australia, The draw for the Moascar Cup is as follows: Auckland Graminar School v. Wait I 8.H.5.; Te Ante College v. Maori Agricultural College; St. Patrick’s College v. Scots College; Christchurch B.H.S. v. St. Bede's (Christchurch) ; Wanganui Technical, a bye. Twenty-five per cent, of the "gate” will go to the union controlling the fixture, and 75 per cent, to the N.Z.R.F.U. fund for fostering school football.

IMPROVING OUR REP. TEAM.

A NEW SET OF BACKS WANTED.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—i noticed in your paper some few days ago "Rugby Player” was exercising his views re the Taranaki representative team, and, like many more lovers of the game, he is anxious to see the best possible team in the field, and his suggestion re an A and B match for the unemployment fund is rather a good one. Nevertheless, the chairman of the Taranaki Rugby Union thinks otherwise, and foolishly predicts a bigger gate receipt by having a Hawera-Tukapa match, but on what grounds he bases his statement I am at a. loss to know. Still, I will leave it to the public, and I trust that the Rugby Union will find time to have both matches played. With reference to the Taranaki team, we are all aware of the. fact that our forward division is a good one,.>and to my mind will hold its own against . any provincial team in the Dominion, but when we come to look at the selection of the back division, not only "Rugby Player,” but several others are utterly disappointed. If the province didn't possess the material for a first-class back division, one could naturally forgive the selectors, but this is not the case, and to justify my reason for saying so I would, like to see the following backs in action :—Half-back, Coleman ; first five-eighths, Fryday; second five-eighths, Johnston; threefiuarter, Wilkinson, Greaves, Vaughan; fullback, Robertson.

Coleman, although not as young as one would like, is undoubtedly the best of halfbacks in the province, and the sooner the selectors give him a trial the better, his knowledge alone of the game being a great asset to the line of young backs I am anxious to see playing outside him.

Fryday, a comparatively young player, is the most versatile footballer we possess in the province, being able to play up to representative form in any position in the scrum, rover, three-quarters or five-eighths. The Clifton Club, I notice, have been playing him first five-eighths this season, and on his games I fail to see anything in Taranaki to compare with him.

Johnston is a young player full of promise, and is improving with every game, and with Coleman half, and Fryday five-eighth the province would have a formidable trio, which it has sadly failed to possess for some years. Greaves is very unselffish, runs straight and goes down to anything, and as a centre threequarter would fill the position admirably. Vaughan, like Coutts, Robertson, B. Roberts, and Dick Roberts, would be alright at centre three-quarter if Rugby was played with two balls, hence my reason for playing him on the wing, and the right wing for preference. Wilkinson has always hern under-rated in irny opinion, as 1 fully recognise him as the best attacking left wing three-quarter in Taranaki, and vers’ little behind Hickey in defence. With these, inside backs I have selected, he is sure to get plenty of opportunity of showing his scoring ability. Robertson at full is in his right position beyond doubt, as he possesses good hands, is a good kick, is fairly fast, and, above all, is a deadly tackler. Ennis as a spare hack is worthy of mention, and has played some good games for his club this season, but in my mind is apt to shirk the Jhard stuff and stopping forward rushes is not his long suit. Now, Mr. Editor, I may state that the selectors are three men well worthy of their i position, and it would be hard to find better, hut in such a scattered province as this, they are undoubtedly at a big disadvantage, and their task is anything but. an easy one, and it. behoves the Rugby Union to give them all the assistance possible.—l am, etc., A KEEN RUGBY FOLLOWER. Hawera, July 26. SOCIAL AT STRATFORD. Our Inglewood correspondent writes: "In regard to your Stratford correspondent’s remark in his report of the football smoke concert held there on Wednesday, respecting the nohrepresentation of the Inglewood Club at- that function. I made it my business to inquire

into the circumstances, and was told by Mr. P. Chapman, secretary of the Inglewood Football Club, that the club had no intimation that a smoke ‘concert was to be held, or otherwise representation would have been assured. The Inglewood Club much regrets the omission, whatever the cause, because its members join heartily in congratulations to the Stratford Club on its success, and wish no mishap to mar the good feelings that are now present aunongst them.”