Hockey and the Indian Tour.

The tour of the Indian team through New Zealand is still undimmed by defeat, but the games have not always been a case of “Eclipse first and the rest Nowhere.”

The Canterbury team played a fast, bustling game, it is true, when they extended the Indian visitors to their utmost, but I, who saw the game, can assure you that there was less jostling, and, dare I say roughness? in the play of the Canterbury men than there was in that of the Indians. Rup Singh and the tall Fernandez appeared somewhat off their game in this match, but Dyan Chand was still uncanny and he had to exercise all his skill and call on all his reserves to clinch the win in the final quarter. The Canterbury men played a clean, fast game and showed that only a little training and coaching would be needed to mould them into as great a team as their opponents. Curiously enough, the Canterbury team was penalized less often than the visiting one.

The lesson of this game was more than made plain in the Wellington test—that New Zealand hockey players need only a little more training in combination, tactics and strategy, to enable a New Zealand team to be developed that would be quite worthy of the same place in the hockey sun that the Indians now occupy. If, as one is led to believe from recent reports, the present Indian team owe their success to a milk diet, then for the New Zealanders only a few more pints are needed.

It was in this game that the last mistaken belief in the invincible superiority of the Indians was shattered. Bowden and others matched up with the mass of the Indian team, but Eddie McLeod (railwayman and cricketer) matched up with the great Dyan Chand himself. McLeod was playing against the hitherto inimitable centre forward and held him all through the game. To our surprise and delight the New Zealand captain showed us that Dyan Chand was not the sole possessor of some witchcraft or some necromantic stick that raised him above all hockey comparisons, but was only one very good player pitted against his equal or near equal. Considering all the conditions, and remembering his lack of practice with great players, McLeod covered himself with glory.