AN EXHIBITION MATCH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9115, 15 June 1908, Page 6

AN EXHIBITION MATCH.

BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION . WELLINGTON, June 14. Six thousand or seven thousand persons attended Athletic Park, yesterday afternoon, when the professional Rugby team, which recently toured England and Australia, played an exhibition match. The match was arranged as a benefit to Mrs Baskiville, the widowed mother of the late Mr A. H. Baskiville, the promoter of the professional's tour, who died at Brisbane. Great interest was taken in the game, it being the first played in New Zealand under the Northern Union rules. The game was exceedingly fast and pleasing from a spectacular noint of view, as the scores —Blacks 55, Reda 20—indicate. This is due to several reasons; first, there are four fewer men in the field; then the scrums are lighter and briefer, and there is no line-out play, a scrum being formed every time the leather goes out of bounds. The ball is not rolled into the scrums a3 in ordinary Rugby, but bounced in, and it shoots out to the backs like lightning. In place kicking the kicker does his own placing, and takes time over the kick, there baing no charge by the opposing forwards as in amateur Rugby. Whenever a player with the ball is brought down he is released by his captor, and must re-start the ball. All these alterations tend, as, of course, they are intended to, make the game fast and interesting to watch. The passing of the professionals, yesterday, was particularly clean, and their running and tackling were picturesque, but the interest of footballers and football enthusiasts wa& diminished by the fact that the sides were unevenly matched, and in any case it was but a "scratch" game.

DUNEDIN, June 13. BY TELSQRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION. Alick M' Donald will not play in the inter-island football match, or any of the remaining test games, though it i 3 hoped he may be prevailed on to go North with the Otago touring team. WELLINGTON, June 14. The senior Rugby matches yesterday resulted as follows:—Melrose (11) beat Victoria College (nil); Oriental (9) beat St. James (3);' Petone(2s) beat Old Boys (3); Poneke (9) beat Wellington (6); Athletic (23) beat Southerns (nil).