E Loyals, reigning Shanghai hockey champions, beat' the Royal Ulster Rifles 3-nil yesterday in the first Inter-Battalion encounter of the season.
The verdict might easily have been doubled in favour of the winners for they held all the trump cards of the game.
Clean hitting, finesse, dash and eleven men working with perfect understanding won the day against a team forced into guerilla tactics by absentees from the regular side.
Till both teams eased the pressure late in the second half, the match was fast and exciting. Lieut Cole, key man in the Loyals front line, played brilliantly for his two goals.
The other A scheme involving payment of umpires without loss of amateur status was tried some years ago at sundry tournaments but failed. Suitable persons prepared to do the work at that standing were lacking, and the available funds did not extend in any case to the employment of full complement at any tournament. Ai the same time some form of payment or expenses subsidy may be the only solution unless the loyalty to the game of the affiliated clubs, of which there are 2,700, could be tapped.
One scheme, advocated by a well-known umpire, is that the larger clubs should each train two (or more in proportion to membership) of their members who would promise when efficient to be available for a weeks work at one tournament at least in the course of the season, preferably a meeting within their Own county. A large body of guaranteed umpires might thus be available for each tournament. The various referees concerned would soon be able. to pick out the best of the goal came from the clever Willcock-Rhodes-Cronin short corner combination, The match was played in ideal
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.