FOOTBALL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3303, 7 September 1889, Page 2

FOOTBALL.

The London "Referee" ou the y Natives. i... "Pendragon" says:—"A Melbourne friend calls my attention to statements made by the Maori, or socalled Maori, footballers while in tho Victorian capital. Their mouthpiece, ' ' Joo Warbrick, makes a. long Btory out of English illtreatment pf.the New Zealandera. Its burden is injustice to the visiting islanders, who would havo won all the matches they happened to lose if they had not been playing against seventeen-men teams, made up of a referee, anY umpire, a captain, and fourteonf others, who all worked together. v . This Warbrick, wb,o;projects another money-seeking expedition ltd the Old ' Country, seriously assured cdlonial interviewers that the boys wero robbed out of the English match at - Blackheath by the referee. In saying that the referep was' only the secretary of tho Rugby Union/' Warbrick insinuates that Rowland Hill must be partial by virtue of his secretarial oflico, and goes ou a lot further in -~ the same strain. Thoso who take «T' the trouble to follow Warbrick ■'■ through the string of recollectionß,inventions, and accusations; will, if they put aside his mondacity, be most' struck with his modesty, By way of preface to his assertion that Rowland Hill robbed the Maories of the AllEngland game ho put the singularly characteristic remark, 'I don't want to blow.' Now, that is just what he does, and what all of his kidney do. When they win thoy blow, and when they lose they are nasty, As to tho Maories not getting fair play^' from officials, that is vilely untrue," What is true is that they grossly misbehaved themselves, and disgusted good men, who refused to moot them again. If the president and secrotary of the Rugby Union were to give verbatim in a police court a list of the things the Now Zealand hybrids and thoroughbreds said thoy were, the poorbox would claim all their pocket money at a dollar per epithet. I am sick of such fellows, who can novor bo beaten and admit that they they were only second best; who get all they can out of üß.and revile us tiUjJßf the near future, coming with further' benefits to come, suggests a course of ■■' buttering. If there is one solid sporting institution in England it is the ltugby -Union, whose officers are thorough, robust, and manly in their athletic creed, and measures. I entertain the greatest respect for, and havo fullfaith in,thelionestyofsuch menas Budd and Hill, to neither of whom, I may mention, have I over spekon, ' though I know of them well enough. Usually the worst of such dirty tuffif truths as this Warbrick circulates is that they are lot off safely out of official contradiction's range. Warbrick has made a mistake this time, because the' Boforco' is extensively read in the Australasian colonies, and I present him with this paragraph. I can also promise a litth addition, which he can paste in his hat—viz, that when next ho is interested ia a touring team for England I will have his 1889 interview printed in full, to remind pcoplo what stylo oi sportsman ho is," To this an English correspondent adds:—" I need scarcely point out % that Warbrick has effectually'choked' tho prospects of any future Now Zealand team visiting this country. After such scandalous misrepresentations, no self-respecting English club belonging to tho Rugby Union could possibly treat a New Zealand team to which Warbrick, or indeed any of our late visitors, bolorged. What can havo induced the New Zealand car*, tain to promulgate such a tissue of mistatoments I cannot conceive, nor can I understand how Ellison, M'Causland, and Madigan allowed them to pass unchallenged. They know better than anyone else that in tho All.England gamo thoy wore completely overmatched, and that if every disputed point had been given them it would not havo in the smallest degree havo affected the evontual result, There can, I'm afraid, bo no doubt that the Maoris throughout their tour showed a most un-English reluctance to accept defeat on their merits. Ono or two of them added to this the comteptiblc habit of persistently accusing referees and urn- *■> pires of partiality and dishonesty, but ofltf this is not true of the team as a ; 1 whole. The implication that the v Maoris habitually used coarse language to and about tlioir oppononts is incorrect and unjust. The sole occasion upon which I heard anything of the sort was in tho pavillion aftor tho All-England match, and then Kcogji (who is a hotheaded Irishman) w alono to blame. . I would suggest to thoso members of tho New Zealand team who decline to accept Joo Warbrick as their mouthpiece that it might be well to write to tho Befereo and say so.