New Zealand rugby football : some hints and criticisms

Hunter, Irwin Walter William., Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, N.Z., 1929

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The original publication details are as follows:

Title: New Zealand rugby football : some hints and criticisms

Author: Hunter, Irwin Walter William.

Edition: 2nd ed

Published: Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, N.Z., 1929

PAT KEOGH.

New Zealand Rugby Football

(SECOND EDITION)

Some Hints and Criticisms

£By IRWIN HUNTER

Printed by

WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED

Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, N.Z.,

Melbourne, Sydney and London.

Dedication To PAT KEOGH

the most brilliant New Zealand player of my time; as great a member of a combination as an individualist; the quickest thinker, most masterly tactician, most determined and exact performer, that ever delighted the eyes of team-mate, foeman, or spectator.

Preface

The thought of writing a small book on Rugby F'ootball has often come across my mind during the last twenty-five years, when I have been reading from time to time the rubbish which accounts itself football history in most books on the subject written in New Zealand.

Just now, when New Zealand Football is experiencing a little more opposition than it for many years has been accustomed to, footballers will be perhaps more inclined to pay attention to something sane on that subject. Some little book of the sort has to be written by somebody, and I propose to save other people the trouble.

My thanks are due to Mr. Harry Stonach for the use of his copy of the New Zealand Rugby Football Annual, 1883; to Messrs. C. G. Thomson, J. S. Thomson, D. McKenzie, and the “Auckland Weekly News” for photographs.

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Contents.

Page

Dedication 2

Preface 3

Chapter I.—Football Criticisms 5

Chapter II.—The Game: The Meaning of it: How to Play it 42

Chapter III.—Reflections 101

General Index 129

Football Criticisms

CHAPTER I.

PROPAGANDA IN RUGBY FOOTBALL.

It is interesting to note how the propagandist has invaded all departments of human life. By propaganda we mean the instillation of false notions into the minds of the ignorant in furtherance of the special aims of the propagandist. “Boost” is a near Yankee relative; it has a relation to the new' word of fate “wangle,” probably also some connection with “wobble.”

Football has not escaped. In the account of the triumphal tour of Great Britain by the 1905 Xew Zealand Team, written by Mr. Dixon, we find the following (p. 10):

“Two points of value were learned from this visit of the English team (of 1888). One was the tactics of heeling out from the scrum, which had not been previously practised in New Zealand.”

In “The Triumphant Tour of the All Blacks, 1924-1925,” “Veteran” goes one better. On page 9 we read: “Prior to their visit (the first English Team) the New Zealand footballers imagined it was illegal to heel the ball out of the scrummage, but they were convinced by the Englishmen that such methods were fair.”

Now examine the fact. In the first New Zealand Rugby Annual. 1885. dealing with the football season of 1884, we find the following (p. 92) under caption “Hints to Players”:

“Heeling Out.”—There can be hardly anj r real doubt amongst those who have carefully considered the laws, that a player is just as much at liberty to kick the ball back as he is to pass or throw it back. But that the practice may be

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abused, and has been abused, is equally clear. To close round the ball scrummage after scrummage simply with the object of heeling it out to one’s half-backs is at once to sacrifice all the pluck and spirit of forward play. To a certain extent the abuse of the practice brings its own penalty; for however speedy and skilful one’s half-backs may be, there are many cases in which attempting to play into their hands would be the height of folly. But even in the majority of cases when the ball can be kicked back in a scrummage, without much fear of mishap, it is a poor sort of a game, inasmuch as it does away with the hard fighting and good footwork which makes forward play interesting. To thus play to one’s half-backs when the scrummage is just in front of the opponent’s goal is one thing, but to systematically adopt the practice as the feature of the forward play of a team is altogether another.”

These remarks are still useful in this day of grace. I was playing football in Dunedin in 1884. Heeling out was quite legitimate then, and was often resorted to.

Again: “The Triumphant Tour of the All Blacks, 192425” (p. 9) refers to Jack Taiaroa’s wonder at seeing Stoddart bringing the ball into play by bouncing out of touch and running in for a try. Taiaroa had been playing football for about ten years before 1888 and had seen that done, or the doing attempted, in many matches prior to 1888. As the story is told, the setting makes it quite impossible that Stoddart could have bounced the ball in, and Taiaroa’s behaviour is that of a cheeky little Maori boy spoiled by Rotorua tourists. Jack Taiaroa was a big silent Maori, a blue-blood, a man who knew how to behave himself, the peerless footballer of his day, and what a day it was!

Again, the New Zealand Annual (p. 89) reads:—

“Touch.—He, the player, must then either—■

I. Bound the ball in the field of play, and then run with it or throw it back to his own side; or

2. Throw it out at right angles to the touch line, etc., etc.”

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We are also told that the Maori Team of 1888-89 was, on its return, scarcely up to the representative standard of New Zealand. The truth is that when the Maoris came back they trounced every provincial team except Auckland, which just managed to win. The Maori team was weakened by desertions as it went North. Keogh gone, Gage gone, and many others. The team that met Auckland was only a shadow-. The Maoris showed what they could do against Canterbury, w-hich had a strong team that year. The Maoris had something to complain of in regard to the Canterbury attitude to their tour, and the Maoris went for them and scored 11 tries, a terrible licking. When the Maoris came back, at their full strength no team in New Zealand could have looked them in the face. People who saw Gage, Keogh, "Mother” Elliott and Tabby Wynyard performing with a football had no doubts in the matter. The Queensland team said they saw the ball go into the scrum and then saw it no more. In New Zealand better players than the Queenslanders were in about the same predicament. The Maori team was not a strong team when it went aw-ay, but what made that team was the picking up of Keogh, and the great capacity for observation and imitation possessed by the Maoris. The Maori team w.hen it came back w-as a wonderful team. I think the football they showed was the best we have ever seen in this country. Their round-the-scrum play was as near perfect as one could imagine. Since those days Maori teams have been to me the most interesting teams to watch.

Again, the well sown idea that the British team of 1888 taught football in New Zealand is mere propaganda, contradicted by the results of the games. Our football was a great surprise to the British team, but they taught us two things: “feint passing” and “screwing the scrum”; we learned the first, but never attained the second. Their scrum screwing w r as marvellously performed. In the first three scrummages they left the Otago nine in a heap. They got the ball and put it behind the left front-ranker. He pushed; the right front-ranker gave back, and the whole

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weight of the scrum was directed on the left front-ranker; suddenly he turned to the right and buried the ball with his heel in his pack, which went away to the left and the Otago forwards fell in a heap as the resistance suddenly disappeared. If you came round to stop the movement they were very quick, and would reverse the whole process and go away on the other side. This was the best thing their forwards did. No New Zealand pack ever approached them in this. To do it you must have great mobility in the scrum and the team work must be excellent.

It might be more true to say that the advent of the British team ruined football in New Zealand. In this way: public interest was stimulated, and the big gates came and money began to pour in. The men who had made fooball went out, and the newcomers, unfortunately, were not amateurs, but only cash-amateurs. Good players found they could get a pound or two from the “manager.” The manager was well supplied with cash, and was more swayed by the idea of being regarded as a “good fellow” than intent on managing his team in the interests of football. There was too much beer and too little control. Twenty years ago the better class hotels refused football teams. Foul play crept in and was not* dealt with. One does not make enemies if one can help it, and “they all do it” became an easy cry. How foul the game had become by 1897 is shown by the Butchers Team, from Wellington. I never heard anvone talk about the football of that game. All about fouling and such pugilism as is possible on a football field—always stupid and babyish. Give the dirty player a good hiding after the game is over—the old way, the best way. When you say “dirty player” you say “cad.” Nothing gets rid with more expedition of that emphatic nuisance, the football , I was about to say “pugilist,” better make it “scrapper.”

Football in New Zealand has been subordinated to gates and money, and whenever you get a mass of money loosely administered the same phenomena always make their appearance 1 adulatory notices in newspapers—“progress of

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the species,” “our real ambassadors,” etc.; no criticism, all compliment, melted butter the only ware—optimistic gentlemen on all sides—no hint of reform, a pervading smell of putty and varnish. Falsification of the past is a necessary adjunct; if you can paint the past black enough people will be more resigned to a prosaic present. People who do not examine facts and are merely guided by words, readily believe that in this world all things are improving, but history tells us that high levels are hard to maintain, and that the danger of deterioration is a very present one; that “laissez faire” policies are apt to end in disaster, and New Zealand football is a very good example.

SOME FOOTBALL HISTORY.

I propose to introduce here an account of matches played by the 1884 Xew Zealand team in Australia. People of comprehension, after reading it, will have corrected many false opinions held before. Many will read a human account of a football match for the first time, and I hope will not miss such rhetorical gems as “a fiendish Fate now condemned the New Zealand backs to a chain of errors.” This, torn from the context, sounds like a wail from Macedonia in the Middle Ages, but is really part of an account of a football match played in South Africa. Perhaps some of them will understand why I am of opinion that the 1884 team was the best team that ever left New Zealand.

In the accounts of these matches the names in italics are names of forwards.

The extracts are from N.Z. Rugby Football Annual, 1885, edited by S. E. Sleigh, Vice-President of Dunedin Football Club.

BACKS.

J. Taiaroa (Otago). A brilliant player, one of the best half-backs in the colonies. His weight, speed, and wriggling runs invariably enable him to score. An indifferent kick. (“Among the victorious New Zealand footballers who made such a grand show at their first match in Sydney is Taiaroa,

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21 years of age, son of the chief Taiaroa, who sits in the New Zealand Parliament. The Maori footballer, who covered the ground in the recent match like another Deerfoot, is splendidly made, he is 5 feet 10 inches, and has a match weight of 12 st. 9 lbs.”—New South Wales paper.)

H. Braddon (Otago). Late of Dulwich College. A grand full-back, kicking far up the ground into touch, and seldom missed collaring his man. He saved the Bathurst match.

G. H. Helmore (Canterbury). A changeable man, —at times he would play brilliantly and on other occasions quite the reverse.

E. Davy (Wellington). A wiry half-back, possessed of a good turn of speed, and a capital collarer.

J. Dumbell (Wellington). A fast player and capital pot at goal Can tackle the biggest man on the field, as Yeomans knew to his cost in the Bathurst match.

J. Roberts (Wellington). Can play in any position. A very smart light man. The way he pounced round the scrummage on to the opposing half-backs was worth seeing.

T. Ryan (Auckland). A splendid three-quarter back. His grand drop-kicking fairly astonished the spectators. Could take his kick with either foot in any place or position, no matter how pressed by foes. Was supposed to be slow on his pins, but the way he careered along the Australian turf gave one a decidedly contrary opinion. Ryan and Warbrick make a pair of three-quarter-backs hard to beat south of the Line.

J. Warbrick (Auckland). A player without a vestige of funk; he will dash at an opponent at full speed and collar him. Very fast, and an untiring individual. Some of the goals he dropped would have reflected credit on either Freeman or Stokes.

FORWARDS.

G. S. Robertson (Otago). An old Blackheathen. A firstrate dribbler. His coolness and thorough knowledge of the rules won many a point. Unsurpassed at long chucking.

W. V. Millton (Canterbury). Captain. The right man in the right place. A steady dribbling forward, always near the leather. His good-natured unselfish play tended in no

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small degree to make the games pleasant and at the same time successful.

E. B. Million (Canterbury). One of the best dribblers m the team.

T. O’Connor (Auckland). The heaviest man in the team, yet despite his weight he was one of the fastest forwards. Never far away from the ball, and seldom left the field without greatly helping to add to the score.

J. Lecky (Auckland). A plucky player; proved one of the best forwards.

G. Carter (Auckland). A small Hercules. No amount of knocking about seemed to have the slightest effect on this hardworking forward.

J. R. Wilson (Canterbury). Perhaps the youngest player in the team. All through the trip, however, he quite held his own with the other forwards.

James Allan (Otago). The “Taieri Giant.” Hard as nails, very fast, and always on the ball.

P. Webb (Wellington)). A strong heavy forward, invaluable in the scrummage. A quiet player, who did a lot of really hard work.

H. Udy (Wellington). A powerful forward, always pretty adjacent to the ball. Lasted from start to finish.

Ist MATCH, —N.Z. v. COUNTY OF CUMBERLAND

Parramatta, 28th May.

Million won the toss, and chose to defend the goal with the sun at the back of his men. A short description of the game will suffice, as the New Zealanders had the game in hand from start to finish, the ball never crossing their goal line, in fact most of the play took place in the Parramatta twentyfive yards, only being taken to or past the centre flags on rare occasions. Parramatta kicked off, and Warbrick returning the ball well, the Blue (N.Z.) forwards had a short dribble, followed by a run on the part of Taiaroa. H. Thompson of Parramatta (who wore blue and black colours), ran the ball

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J. O’Donnell (Otago). A fast wing forward.

to mid-field, but a grand rush of N.Z. forwards, headed by 0 Co,m ° r ’ Soon took the leather to their opponents' ground where O’Connor secured the ball and passed to Ryan, who in turn handed to Helmore, the latter gaining the first try for N.Z. The try was wide of goal, but Ryan by a splendid kick nearly converted it into a goal. Scrummaging on the Parramatta lines followed this event, and the ball being heeled out, Ryan dropped a pretty goal. Another rush of N.Z. forwards after the kick-off brought the ball to the Parramatta twenty-five yards, when O'Donnell gained possession and chucked to E. Million, that player passing in turn to Robertson, who scored a try. No goal resulted. Dumbell showed up, and then Helmore effected a splendid dodgy run. getting through a host of opponents and securing a try amidst loud cheering. The try was not enhanced. Later, Ryan had several ineffectual pots at goal. Leeky ran well, and W. Coates also distinguished himself on the Parramatta side. E. Million had a short dribble, enabling Robertson to get the ball, and that player passed to O'Donnell, who got behind the Parramatta goal-line. Million kicked a poster from the try. Later, Robertson passed to Helmore, who ran in grandly, and tins time Million kicked a goal, bringing the first spell to a close with the following result: N.Z., 2 goals and 4 tries to ml, or 17 points to nothing. An interval of ten minutes was indulged in, the N.Z. men being very thankful of an opportunity of getting a little light refreshment after their labours. The second spell was simply a repetition of the first one, so far as scoring went, but vastly different in the style of play. The N.Z. forwards in the first spell played a rattling game, dribbling and backing each other up admirably, and the passing was most accurate. In the second bout the Blues, having the match in hand, indulged in careless play—the passing being very erratic. Roberts scored a try soon after play commenced, and Million kicked a poster. Shortly afterwards Lccky gained a try, which met with the same fate as its predecessor. Taiaroa, later, made the run of the day, passing

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nearly the whole of the opposing team, and grounding tiro ball between the posts. Million placed an easy goal from this try. Leeky again obtained a try, but no goal resulted. Roberts also, by a smart run, got yet another try, and Million kicked a goal from the place. This brought this very runaway match to a close, the New Zealanders winning to the tune of four goals and seven tries to nil, or 33 points to nothing. The spectators heartily applauded all good play.

2nd MATCH.—N.Z. v. NEW SOUTH WALES.

Sydney, 31st May.

To commence with I might say that the umpires, who used whistles, had little or nothing to do, as the game was contested in the most friendly spirit; the spectators, too, were very impartial in their applause, any good play on either side being heartily cheered. Million, winning the toss, elected to play with the sun at his back, and at 3 o'clock precisely N.S.W. set the ball in motion. The Blue forwards immediately rushed the game to the N.S.W. lines, forcing the wearers of the green to touch down—this within three minutes. Scrummaging followed right on the N.S.W. twenty-five line, when Helmore had a pot at goal without effect. A little play occurred among the forwards between the N.S.W. twenty-five yards and mid-field, when Bayliss, the N.S.W. captain, effected a short spurt. Then Helmore had another ineffectual pot at goal. The play was then taken to the centre of the field, and Walker fumbling the leather, the Blues, with one of their well-known rushes, forced N.S.W. down. After the kick-out Deane made a slashing run to the N.Z. twenty-five. Million and Taiaroa took the ball back again, and more struggling on the N.S.W. lines was the order of the day. O’Connor upset a lot of men and all but got in. Later, Warbrick nearly dropped a goal. O’Connor again had hard luck as he got behind the goal-line but lost possession of the ball in the attempt. After some scrummaging in N.S.W. territory Helmore passed the ball unselfishly to Warbrick. who

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dropped a splendid goal with his left foot, amidst ringing cheers. This occurred after half-an-hour’s play. Later, Warbrick ran well to N.S.W. quarters, and Brandon finished up a run by dropping at goal, without any result, however. Ryan, Taiaroa, and Warbrick in turn distinguished themselves by good running and kicking, and together with the really smart dribbling of the N.Z. forwards, the N.S.W. goal was kept in a constant state of siege. Several shots at goal forced the N.S. Welshmen to touch down in defence in quick succession. Carter came to the fore with a dribble, and Roberts had a splendid long shot at goal, the leather falling a little short of the mark. Taiaroa dodged past a lot of opponents and nearly got in. Another pot at goal by Ryan forced N.S.W. down for the tenth time, when “half-time” was called—the score being, N.Z. 1 goal to nil, or 4 points to nothing. The ball never went past the N.Z. goal-line.

Million started the second spell with a rattling kick, and a grand dribble of Blue forwards, headed by the Taieri giant, forced the ball near to the N.S.W. twenty-five flag, when Taiaroa calmly secured the ball from the grasp of a New South Welshman and landed the ball right under the posts. Taiaroa was heartily applauded for this smart piece of play which eventuated within three minutes of the kick-off. Million kicked an easy goal from the try. After the resumption of play N.Z. was forced down for the first time. Bad passing by N.S.W. enabled Warbrick to reach their twenty-five, and Taiaroa all but got in. The Blue forwards were now kicking too hard, and lost a lot of ground thereby. On one occasion Ryan was sorely pressed, but, although surrounded by opponents, he kicked hard into touch in consummate style. O’Connor, Carter, and O’Donnell then distinguished themselves, and the N.S.W. lines were hotly besieged for some time. Helmore effected a short run; later, the Blues kicked the ball hard over their opponents’ line, and Robertson, who was backing-up splendidly, ran over the line neck-and-neck with a New South Welshman, and. amidst great excitement, gained

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a try for N.Z. No goal resulted from the try. Allan afterwards dribbled down to his adversaries goal-line, and Ryan and Taiaroa nearly scored, the ball being within a foot of the goal-line. The N.S.W. lines were menaced for some time, any amount of play taking place between their goal-line and the twenty-five flag. Cameron at last raised the siege with a good run, and finished up with a kick past the centre flag. Following this, Walker got the ball, but Taiaroa charged down his kick, enabling Warbrick to pot at goal, without effect however. After forcing down, Graham, by good play, took the ball to the Blues’ twenty-five, New Zealand being forced down for the second and last time in the match. Walker, from a catch, kicked the ball into touch near the Blues’ twentyfive. and some scrummaging ensued there. A shot at goal by Graham, from a free catch, had no effect on the state of the score, and the Blues rushing the leather down the ground, Taiaroa ran into touch, and “no side” was called, victory resting with the New Zealand representatives by 2 goals and 1 try to nothing, or 11 points to nothing; N.Z. being forced down twice, N.S.W. twelve times.

There cannot be the slightest doubt that the better team won. In every department of the game the New Zealanders excelled—the dribbling of the forwards, the collaring and kicking of the backs, and above all the accurate short and long passing of the visitors being greatly admired. The bulk of the play took place in the N.S.W. quarters, the ball only being rushed away at intervals. Taiaroa was the hero of the day, his running, dodging and collaring fairly astonishing both players and spectators, who duly meted out their applause to this “Prince of Footballers.” “Look-out for Taiaroa!” was the prevailing cry from the start to the finish of the game. Ryan and Warbrick, too, played a rattling three-quarter game; and Roberts was very smart and unselfish as half-back. Braddon did the little he had to do effectually, his long kicking being excellent. All the forwards played a rattling dribbling game, simply walking through their opponents at times; and where all played so well it would be invidious to

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select any one for special praise. Several of the N.S.W. men showed good individual play, but their whole style of game lacked the unselfish combination so admirably shown by the New Zealanders. The teams cheered each other heartily at the end of the game.

3rd MATCH—N.Z. v. SEVENTEEN OF SUBURBS.

Sydney, 3rd June.

X.Z. won this match hands down to the tune of two goals and seven tries to one goal, or 23 points to 5. Walker, wellknown in N.Z., captained the locals, and Messrs. W. Millton, O'Connor, Helmore and Roberts stood out of our ranks. The Association ground, which was in splendid condition, was the scene of the contest. Owing to the day not being a public holiday there was but a poor attendance-1000 people at the most being present. The weather was very hot, and affected our men more than in any of their matches yet played. Messrs. Million and M. Arnold acted as umpires, but there was no referee. The Suburbs won the toss, and elected to play with the sun and a fairly stiff breeze at their backs. Our men chose Robertson as skipper in the match. The Seventeen carried the ball past the centre flags at the outset, but Warbrick kicked back into touch. Forward play on the part of the Seventeen carried the leather back to N.Z. quarters, where a lot of tough scrummaging took place. The Blues pulled themselves together, and by brilliant dribbling, aided by a kick by Ryan, reached the centre of the ground. N.Z. lines were again attacked, whence Davy, by a dodgy run, took the ball to the N.S.W. twenty-five yards, and forced the “wearers of the green” down. Later, Taiaroa nearly scored. Scrummaging followed in N.S.W. quarters, and Allan getting the leather passed to Wilson, who chucked on to Davy, and that player ran in grandly and got a try—the try was not enhanced. After the kick-out O'Donnell and Allan dribbled the ball to their opponents’ twenty-five yards. Ryan seized an opportunity and had a grand but ineffectual shot at goal. Hillyer effected a pretty run for the Surburban team but the Blues worked the ball back. \\ alker, although tackled by O’Donnell managed

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NEW ZEALAND TEAM. 1884. n I !a n k w o *ai'n? ,|)o ,", ncn ' . U<iy. Robertson, Allan. E. Milltnn, Ryan, Wilson. Second Row.—Davy, Taiaroa Carter T O Connor (absent).(OtlHam). Braddon, Helmore, Webb, Sleigh (Manager). Front Row.—Lecky, Warbrick, Roberts.

NEW ZEALAND NATIVE FOOTBALL TEAM. 18S8. ZW O Back Row.—Arthur Warbrick (blast Coast). A. Webster (North Shore). Wi Karauria (Hawke’s Bay), D. Stewart (Thames). C. Williams (Wellington), W. Nehua (Whangarci). W. Warbrick (lauranga), T. Rene (Nelson), Alf. WarbnClSecond°r Rnw I Scott (Manager). Ihimaira (Hawke’s Bay), R. Maynard (North Shore). W. Wynyard (North Shore). D. Cage (Wellington). .1. Warbrick. Captain (Hawke’s Bay), T. Ellison (Wellington), C. Goldsmith (Hawke s Bay). G. Wynyard (North Shore), W. Anderson (Thames), I. Eyton (Treasrirer). n . .. .. Front Row. P. Keogh (Dunedin). K G. Taiaroa (Dunedin). W. Elliott (Auckland), J. Lawlor (Coach), K. McCausland (Auckland), C. Madigan (Auckland), F. Warbrick (Tauranga), 11. Lee (Riverton). Absent.— H. J. \\ ynyard (North Shore).

to send the ball to the centre of the ground. Lecky, E. Million, and Jl ilson showed up at this stage with a grand passing run, and the latter scored a try, which Ryan failed to convert into a goal. Taiaroa getting the ball, passed to O'Donnell, who chucked back to Taiaroa, enabling our “half” to get a try behind the posts. No goal was kicked. The Suburbans rushed the ball down the field. Cleeve making a good run. and Pearse got a try—the first one scored during the trip against N.Z.— amidst loud cheers. Jones, who played at Home in 1882 with the Australian cricketers, kicked a goal from the try. Halftime was now called, the score standing: New Zealand. 3 tries (6 points) to N.S.W. 1 goal (5 points). The Suburban kick-off was capitally returned by Braddon, and scrummaging ensued in mid-field. The ball was worked back by tight scrummaging to the N.S.W. twenty-five yards, where magnificent passing on the part of the Maoris endangered their adversaries’ lines. Reckless passing by the N.S.W. men made matters worse for their side, and Warbrick was within an ace of scoring. Dumbell potted a goal, after a good dodgy run, but this score was disallowed as the ball touched the hands of one of the Suburban team. Allan then ran well, and Ryan scored a beautiful try, which Dumbell converted into a goal. The ball was well returned by Warbrick after the kick-off. A long low kick down the side of the ground by Williamson left the way open to Taiaroa, who, by a grand dash, ran half the length of the ground and scored a try. No goal resulted. Allan, later, gained an easy try, no goal being kicked however. The ball was kicked out, and Warbrick gaining possession had a splendid shot at the Suburban posts, the ball falling a few feet short of the desired mark. H. Hillyer ran well for New South Wales to the mid-flag. Dumbell, by smart kicking, stopped a rush of the opposing forwards, and a few seconds later O’Donnell made a fast run in. Taiaroa failed to kick a goal from the try (score 17 points for N.Z. to 5). \\ arbrick, who had been kicking splendidly all through the game secured the oval sphere after the kick-out, and dropped one of the longest goals I ever saw kicked. Great cheering

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B

was accorded this brilliant piece of play. O’Donnell afterwards ran so effectually as to enable Lecky to score a try. No goal resulted. The Blues were pressed slightly for a time, but Robertson, by one of his puzzling dribbles, took the ball out of his twenty-five yards, Dumbell and Warbrick assisting by kicking down into touch. Udy came to the fore with a good dribble, and scrummaging ensued under the Suburban posts. The ball was taken out only to be returned by Davy. Then the leather appeared in N.Z. quarters, and Ryan had a grand kick—the ball travelling at least 70 yards—at the Suburban citadel. This brought the game to a close, the result being 2 goals and 7 tries to 1 goal—23 points to 5. The umpires used whistles most effectually throughout the game.

4th MATCH.—N.Z. v. NORTHERN DISTRICTS.

Newcastle, sth June.

Messrs. O’Connor, Lecky, Davy and Braddon stood out for New Zealand. Millton won the toss, and elected to play with the strong wind which prevailed most of the afternoon. The game commenced in a perfect deluge of rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning. The ground was soon one mass of puddles, and the players laboured under great disadvantages. The Newcastle men were forced down twice soon after the kick-off. In ten minutes Taiaroa got behind his opponents’ lines, and Millton kicked a goal (5 —0). Owing to a good run by W. Laing, the Newcastle men took the ball to the centre of the ground, where a lot of scrummaging took place. Later, the Novacastrians were forced down several times in succession. Then Helmore had a futile shot at goal. Coates showed up for Newcastle, and then Allan responded with a try for N.Z. No goal resulted. Newcastle was penned for some time, and Taiaroa, taking advantage of the situation, collared the ball and passed prettily to Helmore, who dropped a goal (11 —0). After the kick-off the ball was carried to the N.Z. 25 yards, whence Roberts, Warbrick, and IV. Millton took it to their opponents’ goal-line. Helmore again shone by potting a clean goal (15 —0). Carter, O'Donnell, and E. Millton following up well after the kick-off, endangered the

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Newcastle lines, where a scrummage was formed. Half-time was soon called, the score standing: N.Z., 3 goals and 1 try to nil —ls points to 0.

As the men were wet through, no time was wasted in starting the second spell. A tough scrummage was formed in a smail lake near the Newcastle goal-line, amidst great laughter on the part of the non-combatants. Ryan endeavoured to pot at goal, but his efforts did not meet with success. Warbrick, by excellent collaring, frustrated the attempts of several opponents to get away. The N.Z. backs here had several ineffectual kicks at goal. Then a N.Z. forward scored a try, from which Taiaroa kicked a goal (20 —0). Following this a lot of scrummaging ensued on the other side of the Newcastle 25 flag, and eventually E. Million obtained a try. No goal was kicked (22 —0). Warbrick and Taiaroa effected good runs, and Newcastle had to touch down several times in defence. Allan had a free kick from a catch, but nothing resulted. Wilson and E. Million dribbled well, the latter all but getting in. Taiaroa, Robertson, and Wilson, by capital passing enabled O’Donnell to secure a try, and Ryan kicked a goal (27—0). Then Taiaroa gained a try, from which no goal was kicked. And so the game ended in favour of New Zealand by 5 goals and 3 tries—29 points to 0. Like the Suburban team, the Novacastrians pumped themselves out in the first spell, and proved no match whatever for their better-organised adversaries. The game, like all the other ones engaged in by the New Zealanders, was played in the best spirit, and but for the heavy rain and its accompanying friends—thunder and lightning—would have been very enjoyable.

sth MATCH.—NEW ZEALAND v. NEW SOUTH WALES.

Sydney, 7th June.

This, the second contest between these colonies, was played on the Association ground, in decidedly warm weather, and resulted in another win for New Zealand by 3 goals and 3 tries to 1 try, or 21 points to 2. Messrs. Carter, Davy, Dumbell, and Lecky stood out of the New Zealand team, and S. Chapman captained the New South Wales men, who were

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supposed to be a better all-round set of men than their confreres who played on the 31st May. Umpires: Messrs. E. Davy (N.Z.) and R. Arnold (N.S.W.). Referee: Mr. S. E. Sleigh (N.Z.). New South Wales winning the toss, elected to play with the sun at their backs. Some 6000 spectators, including many ladies, were present. The splendid band of the Naval Brigade was in attendance. Shortly after 3 o'clock Million led his men, dressed in the now dreaded dark blue, into the arena; the Welshmen attired in green, following close on their footsteps, both teams being received with the heartiest applause. The keenest interest was taken in the game by all present, and, as in every game played by the New Zealanders in New South Wales, the spectators were most impartial in their applause; the running of Taiaroa, \\ arbrick, and Ryan—the grand kicking of the two last-named, the splendid dribbling and all-round play of the New Zealand forwards, and, above all, the wonderfully accurate passing, being greatly admired by the onlookers. One noticeable feature in the game was that when the Blues were pressed on their lines (and they were placed in that position several times in the first spell) their opponents seemed unable to take advantage of the situation, due greatly to their selfish play and lack of combination. The kicking of the New South Welshmen, especially the potting at goal, was of a very secondrate order. Thanks to the lesson taught them by the Blues in previous matches, the wearers of the green passed well at times, especially so on the part of the brothers Chapman, who are recently out from Home. I might remark that, with the exception of Robertson and Braddon, all the New Zealanders learnt their football in New Zealand.

And now for a slight description of the game. Million kicked off, and the ball was well returned to the Blues 25. Helmore ran to the centre of the ground, where, after some tight scrummaging, Taiaroa from a catch had a free but fruitless shot at goal. Robertson effected a dribble. Then Ryan potted at goal without result. Owing to capital passing Robertson gained a try, which Ryan enhanced by placing a goal (s—o). The New South Welshmen now invaded the

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-New Zealand twenty-five, whence the ball was taken by passing tactics to mid-field. Braddon at times was pressed, but invariably returned the ball in consummate style. Later the Blues were rushed, and the ball was kept near their goal for some time, and, owing to Belcher potting at goal, New Zealand was forced down for the first time. E. Million and Robertson effected a good combined dribble, but the leather was again returned to the New Zealand twenty-five, where some forward struggling ensued. O’Connor made a good run to the half-way flag. After more scrummaging Sweetland came to the fore With a good run for New South Wales. Taiaroa now effected a slashing run, all but scoring, amidst considerable excitement. Cleeve, for New South Wales, carried the ball out of danger; but the Blues, headed by O'Connor and E. Million, rushed the New South W ales lines, and Helmore gaining possession of the ball, thanks to grand passing, secured a try. No goal resulted. (7—0.) After this proceeding Taiaroa and Warbrick in turn nearly got in. Graham cleared the New South Wales lines by kicking down the field, and Oxley, following up, ran to the New Zealand lines, where H. Fligg got the ball, and gained a try for New South Wales. No goal was kicked. (7—2.)

N.S.W. kicked off in the second spell, and Braddon returned the ball to centre field. A big rush of the Blue forwards forced the Welshmen back on their lines. Warbrick made a short run, and, later, Taiaroa scored. No goal ensued from this try (9—2). A few minutes later a good pass by AUati to O’Donnell enabled the latter to score; but, again, no goal was kicked (11 —2). After the kick-out O’Connor ran well to the N.S.W. twenty-five. Later, Ryan ran splendidly. The N.S.W. men rallied, and reached the Blues’ twenty-five. The ball was soon dribbled back by the Blue forwards, and Warbrick seizing it, ran in, but the score was disallowed. A rush by the N.S.W. men forced N.Z. to touch down in defence. This was a last spasmodic effort on the part of the N.S.W. men, who seemed to be thoroughly pumped out. O’Donnell, Allan, and Warbrick all had short runs. Wilson getting the ball, passed to O’Connor, and from a try by the last-named, Ryan kicked a goal (16—2). By quick play Taiaroa

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again scored, and, again, Ryan placed a splendid goal. This work brought the game to a close, with the result already mentioned, viz.:—2l points to N.Z. to 2 for N.S. Wales.

6th MATCH.—N.Z. v. WESTERN DISTRICTS.

Bathurst, 11th June.

The rain came down heavily on this day. The game was the toughest one yet played by our men, for we only scored one goal (dropped from the field) in the first spell with a hurricane of wind at our backs, and it was any odds on the locals scoring more freely with a similar advantage in the second round. Between the spells the spectators loudly applauded their men for the gallant w-ay they had kept the New Zealanders at bay. The New Zealand backs potted at goal incessantly in the first spell, frustrating all the hard work of their forwards. The spectators, including our men who were not playing, quite anticipated the defeat of New Zealand. But it was not to be. When Million led his men into the field there was that look of determination in their faces which meant that they were determined to carry the game in spite of opponents and unpropitious elements. And so they did. Despite the heavy rain pelting in their faces, the New Zealand forwards, in their well-known style, gave their opponents a good deal of trouble in the defence of their lines, seldom allowing the opposing backs an opportunity of running or kicking. Braddon’s play was the feature of the game. Every time our goal was endangered he managed to get the ball away. As Million, the skipper said, “He always felt safe with that little buffer behind him.” A word of praise is due to the way Million rallied his men. And now for a brief description of the play.

Million, winning the toss, elected to play with the hurricane, and Bathurst kicked off. Helmore potted ineffectually once or twice at goal when he had splendid chances of running in. Bathurst was besieged for some lime, and Dumbell kicked a goal (4 —0). The New Zealand forwards played wretchedly for some time, allowing their opponents on several occasions to run through them. Roberts effected a smart dribble, and

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then Yeomans (to my thinking the best player in New South Wales) ran the leather right up to the New Zealand twentyfive, passing all but Braddon, who brought him to earth in grand style. Taiaroa, who was carefully watched throughout t e game, ran the leather back, and later the same player irom a catch had a long pot at goal, unfortunately the oval sphere falling a few yards short of the desired mark. Then Ryan nearly dropped a goal. Bathurst, playing well together, took the ball to the centre, but Ryan, who was most übiquitous, had another pot at goal, without result, however. A lot of scrummaging followed on the Bathurst lines, but their forwards, playing better than ours, held their own in spite of the wind, and carried the ball to mid-field. Helmore ran to their twenty-five, and the ball fluctuated for a long time between that place and the half-way flag. So stubborn a resistance did Bathurst make that when half-time was called no further score was registered, the game standing—New Zealand one goal to nil (4—0).

After a short interval the teams again entered the field, and the populace, after our men’s poor display, were quite justified in thinking that the New Zealand colours were about to be lowered. Millton kicked off, and the New Zealand forwards following up well, were down on the Bathurst back ere he could take his kick. Scrummaging ensued in the centre, New Zealand packing well, and keeping the ball at their feet, thus frustrating the attempts of their opponents to make the game loose and take advantage of the wind. This tight scrummaging conveyed the scene of action to the Bathurst twenty-five. Dumbell kicked badly, and Butler, for the Western Districts, ran down the ground, and finished with a capital drop into touch near the New Zealand lines. Loud cries of “Look out for Tararuaj” (sic), “Mind the Tairi!” There goes the Maori!” showed that something was going on; and so it was too, for Taiaroa, collaring the ball, ran half the length of the ground, and passed to Dumbell, who nearly got m. Bathurst again worked the ball to New Zealand quarters. Then Hclmore, who played forward in the second spell, effected a grand dribble, forcing his opponents to touch down in defence.

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Later the New Zealand forwards, playing like one man, worked the ball to the Bathurst twenty-five. A Bathurst back sent the ball down the ground, and Braddon, being pressed, ran the ball right past his opponents, enabling Wilson to get very near the Bathurst goal-line. Ryan and O’Connor in turn nearly scored, and the ball still remained in dangerous proximity to the Bathurst lines. Udy and O’Connor now did good work, and the way little Dumbell collared the big opposing crack, Yeomans, on several occasions, fairly “brought down the house." Following some scrummaging the ball appeared in New Zealand territory, where Braddon had a sultry time of it on occasions innumerable. New Zealand carried several heavy scrummages, taking the leather to the centre—Ryan further assisting by running on to the Bathurst twenty-five. Here more tight scrummages occurred. Davy, Carter, and Wilson effected a splendid passing run, and the latter gained a try,—a piece of most unselfish play. No goal resulted (6 —0). Million encouraged his men, who were pressed at times, and they rushed the ball to the enemy’s lines, where Lecky ran in with considerable dash. Million enhanced the try (11 —0). Later, New Zealand was pressed, and forced down twice in rapid succession; and these tactics brought this very tough match to a conclusion.

7th MATCH.—NEW ZEALAND v. WALLAROO AND UNIVERSITY COMBINED.

Sydney, 12th June.

This match was played on the Association ground, and resulted in a seventh victory for New Zealand by four goals and two tries to two goals, or 23 points to 10. This extra match was arranged for certain reasons. Needless to say, it was pretty hard work playing two tough matches on two consecutive days, especially after travelling all night. The Wallaroo and University are two of the crack Sydney clubs, and it was thought by their supporters that they would have a fair chance of pulling off the match, as they were pretty well acquainted with one another’s play, and would show a more combined front than their unlucky predecessors. They

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certainly were a fine big set of men, the forwards especially, and had they been adequately supported by their backs, a different result might perhaps have been looked for. The weather was fine, and the ground in good' condition, but there was not a large muster of spectators.

Messrs. Dumbell, Helmore, Webb, and O’Donnell stood out of the New Zealand ranks. Million, with his usual luck, won the toss, and elected to play with a very slight breeze. \\ allaroo kicked off, and Braddon muffing the return, the opposing forwards were on him like a shot. In a few minutes \\ allaroo secured a free kick from a catch near the New Zealand goal, but it was not turned to account. Ryan kicked into touch past the half-way flag, and after some scrummaging Robertson dribbled to the Wallaroo twenty-five. Good passing on the part of Roberts and Taiaroa forced Wallaroo down for the first time. After the kick-out the ball was taken to the centre flag. Taiaroa, by a wriggling run, appeared in his opponents’ quarters, where Ryan had a grand but ineffectual pot at goal. Later, Warbrick nearly got in, and after a huge scrummage on the Wallaroo goal-line, Taiaroa scrambled across the line. The try, however, was disallowed. Plenty of scrummages occurred in the centre of the ground after the above play, and Wallaroo, carrying a tight scrummage, reached the New Zealand twenty-five. The ball was quickly re-taken to W’allaroo territory, and Ryan, though quite hemmed in by opponents, dropped a beautiful goal (4—o). This piece of play occurred twenty-five minutes after the kick-off. W r allaroo kicked off again, the ball being well returned by Braddon. IV. Million and Allan had a combined dribble. Warbrick and Taiaroa showed some good passing; then Roberts effected a dribble, allowing Taiaroa to secure a try, from which Million failed to kick a goal (6—o). WTtrbrick, from a catch, had a splendid but ineffectual shot at goal. The ball was taken by the Wallaroos to mid-field, whence VV. Million dribbled it to the opposing lines, and secured a try, from which he kicked a goal himself (11 —0). Ryan returned the ball well from the kick-off, but the Wallaroo forwards rushed the play to the New Zealand twenty-five. Taiaroa ran to the centre, but the

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ball was taken back by Sweetland. A splendid charge of New Zealand forwards changed the scene of action, and Lecky nearly got behind the Wallaroo goal-line. Flinn came to the rescue by kicking down into touch near the half-way flag. Ryan punted down the ground, and the Wallaroo man, instead of touching down in defence, endeavoured to kick out. This attempt was nullified by the New Zealanders rushing him, and the ball rebounded over the \\ allaroo goal-line, where Roberts secured a try after an exciting chase. Ryan kicked a goal from the try (16 —0). Wallaroo kicked off, and their men entered the Blues twenty-five. Carter dribbled to mid-field, where some give-and-take play ensued, and a few minutes later half-time was called, the score standing: New Zealand, 3 goals and 1 try to nil, or 16 points to 0.

The New Zealanders advanced on their opponents’ lines immediately after the kick-off, and scrummaging took place. A rattling kick by a Wallaroo man carried the game to the centre of the ground. Ryan was now sent full back, and Braddon took his place at three-quarter. Shaw ran grandly down to the New Zealand twenty-five, and Ryan by an equally good run carried the ball back past the centre. O’Connor, by good forward work, nearly scored, and a tough scrummage was formed near the Wallaroo goal-line. The ball was splendidly taken by a Wallaroo man to the centre. The New Zealand forwards, however, with an irresistible rush, dashed down to their opponents’ lines, and IV. Million obtained a try the same player converting the try into a goal (21 —0). Later, our men fell to pieces a good deal, owing to the severe work they had had the last two days. A Wallaroo man ran to the New Zealand twenty-five, and New Zealand was penned for some time. New Zealand was eventually forced down. By the aid of two good runs by Warbrick, the Wallaroo twenty-five was reached, and Taiaroa nearly scored. Then Logan made a magnificent run down the ground, passing most of our men, and only being collared in the very nick of time. The ball was taken back by Carter, Robertson, and others only to be returned in double-quick time to the New Zealand goal-line. Then the play was carried to the centre, where Bavlis secured

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the leather, and by a grand dodgy run got clean through the New Zealanders and scored a try amidst great cheering. Flinn kicked an easy goal from the try (21—5). This occurred after half-an-hour s play. The New Zealanders rallied and endangered their opponents’ lines, and finally IV. Million got a try. This try was not enhanced (23—5). The ball was immediately rushed to the New Zealand twenty-five, and Graham nearly got in. Later, Sweetland scored for Wallaroo, and Flinn again kicked a goal from the try (23 —10). The ball was taken up the field determinedly by the Blues, and scrummaging occurred on the Wallaroo goal-line—Roberts all but getting behind, The ball was taken well to the centre by Wallaroo, Ryan returning it into touch, and “no side” was called.

Bth MATCH —NEW ZEALAND v. NEW SOUTH WALES.

Sydney, 20th June.

This, the last match played by the New Zealand footballers in New South Wales, resulted in an eighth victory for them by three goals and one try to nothing, or, in other words, 16 points to nil, bringing the total score for New Zealand up to 167 points to 17 points for New South Wales, or 150 points in favour of the New Zealanders. All eight matches have been won with a good margin, and without a single fluke. Owing to a mistake on the part of the Timekeeper, two spells of 38 minutes onl}’ were played. The day being fine there was a capital attendance of spectators, who took the keenest interest in the game. The New South Wales team w r as supposed to be the strongest one yet played against New Zealand, as the Selection Committee had picked the best men from the different teams which had previously encountered the New Zealanders.

Play commenced shortly after three o’clock. Million, as usual, won the toss, and elected to play with a stiff breeze. New South Wales accordingly kicked off. The ball being well returned by Ryan, New South Wales quarters were reached. The New South Wales forwards immediately rushed the ball back to the New Zealand twenty-five, where scrummaging occurred. Carter took the ball out a short distance.

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and the other Blue forwards dribbled to the half-way flag. O’Donnell taking the ball well from touch, reached the New South Wales twenty-five, and Robertson also getting the ball from touch, by a splendid long throw, sent it into Warbrick's hands, and that player dropped a magnificent goal (4 —0). This was a pretty piece of play, and was heartily applauded by the spectators. Only five minutes had elapsed ere the goal was kicked. Warbrick returned the kick-off well. The New South Wales forwards shortly afterwards entered the New Zealand quarters, but Braddon stemmed the rush by running well and dropping far down into touch. New' South Wales was pressed for a time, and Helmore from a catch had a fruitless shot at goal, New South Wales touching down. Later, scrummaging took place 40 yards from the New South Wales lines, where Allan came to the fore with a good dribble. New South Wales was forced dowm thrice in rapid succession. Warbrick effected a long run after the kick-out; then Taiaora by one of his wriggling runs nearly got behind the New South Wales goal-line. Both of these players were loudly cheered for their remarkably good play. Good passing on the part of several men enabled Warbrick to pot at goal. The only result was a force down, though the ball went very close to the desired mark. Play still remained in New South Wales territory, O'Connor and Warbrick in turn all but getting in. Then Warbrick potted unsuccessfully at goal. Some play took place in mid-field, whence Robertson dribbled right down to the New South Wales goal-line; and a few minutes later a maul-in-goal occurred between O’Connor and Deane, the umpire giving his decision in favour of the last-named. Taiaroa ran well after the kick-off, followed by O’Connor, and Taiaroa nearly got in, losing the ball just as he crossed the goal-line. IVebb did some good work, and the ball was kept in close proximity to the New South Wales goal-line. The Welshmen rushed the game to mid-field, where scrummaging eventuated. Helmore effected a short run, and O'Connor was within an ace of scoring. After a touchdown in defence on the part of New South Wales, O’Donnell and Taiaroa ran to the New South Wales twenty-five flag, whence the ball was kicked by a

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Welshman into touch near the centre. Scrummaging was indulged in, and the New South Welshmen advanced up the ground. Helmore punted into touch, and half-time was called, the score standing—New Zealand 4 points to nil. Allan was absent for fifteen minutes in the first spell, owing to a slight knock on the head, but he played pluckily and well through the second bout. The New Zealand lines were never pressed in the first spell, and New Zealand was not forced down once.

The New South Welshmen were forced down immediately at the commencement of the second spell, Robertson’s able dribbling being mainly instrumental for this procedure on their part. It must have been rather galling for the New South Wales players to see the people go round the ground to the back of their goal when play started—disheartening, to say the least of it. Following some loose scrummaging in midfield, O’Connor ran well to the New South Wales twenty-five, and the New Zealand forwards, pressing too hard on the ball, forced New South Wales down again. Helmore muffed the kick-out, but Ryan, Warbrick, and Taiaroa came to the rescue, and by a good passing run got their half-back out of difficulties.' Ryan secured a free kick from a catch. He sent the ball just short of the posts, and the New South Wales back mulling the ball, the New Zealand forwards, with Carter in the van, were down on him, and forced New South Wales to touch down m self-defence. Subsequently W. Million ran well, and Allan dribbled to the New South Wales twenty-five. The Welshmen rallied, their forwards by excellent play reaching the New Zealand twenty-five, and one of their men from a catch had an opportunity to drop at the New Zealand fortress. The mark was at a difficult angle, so the man contented himself by kicking across the ground to give his forwards an opportunity of scoring. This procedure kept the New Zealanders busily engaged in defending their lines for a considerable time. Finally the New Zealanders carried a tight scrummage, and enabled Ryan to kick into touch near centre-field. Later, Ryan ran well to the New South Wales twenty-five, and the Blues struggled manfully to cross the New South Wales goalline. Hie ball was chucked to Helmore, but that player

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muffed the ball sadly when he had a grand chance of potting a goal. This bad play enabled Yeomans to obtain the ball, and he made a grand run towards the New Zealand citadel. Warbrick partly nullified Yeomans’ efforts by a counter spurt, and then F. Baylis ran right down to the New Zealand lines, being only collared by Brandon and Lecky within a few feet of the goal-line. A kick at the New Zealand goal by a Welshman forced New Zealand down for the first time in the match. Ryan after the kick-out ran splendidly to the New South Wales twenty-five, and Robertson, thanks to O’Connor passing the ball to him, gained a try, from w'hich IV. Million kicked a goal (9 —0). This last piece of play was very smart work, the ball being taken down the ground at a tremendous pace. Robertson again showed up favourably, and a scrummage was formed near the New South Wales goal-line. Ryan and Warbrick did some serviceable work, enabling IV. Million to get a try. No goal was kicked (II —0). Million, Robertson and Allan, by a grand passing run rushed down to the New South Wales goal-line after the kick-out, and the latter got a try between the posts, from which Million kicked a goal (16 —0). This brought the game to a conclusion. The special features of the New Zealand play were the drop-kicking and running of Ryan and Warbrick, and the excellent running and dribbling of O’Connor, Robertson, and Allan.

The following comments on the trip by Sydney papers may prove interesting:— Sydney Sportsman, 4th June —‘‘Football will never become with us a leading game in the same sense as cricket. Our winters are too mild and too short to admit of our players acquiring the proficiency attained in colder countries, in which the game was originally regarded as a means of keeping the body warm. In no country is the sport more popular than in England, where almost every town and village has its football club, and next to the United Kingdom comes New Zealand, which seems to have inherited from the mothercountry its passion for a game which seems confined to English-speaking nations. In Victoria and this Colony football is gaining ground every year, but it is doubtful whether any of our players will gain for their pastime the reputation which

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Has been gained by our sculling and cricketing. Yet they have much in their favour, despite the disadvantages by which they are surrounded, and were their teams selected with closer attention to physical requirements, they would be enabled to hold their own more successfully. The New Zealanders seen, to furnish a type of the excellence required. They are a fine body of men, well-built, and with their muscular powers fully e\eloped, although their dark uniforms made them appear thmner than they really were. By their side the New South Wales men appeared very light, and although it was felt that 4 . %vou,d show fight, none believed in their coming off victorious. So it proved. From the first they were overmatched y the visitors from Maoriland, actually scoring nothing at the close. And the Sydney Telegraph of the 14th June— No glorious uncertainty’ appears to attach to the scries of football matches now being played between the local clubs and he visiting team from New Zealand. By universal consent the champmnslnp belongs to the strangers. The New South ales players are „ ot much more than ‘ muffs . by com[)arjson hj the genial fellows who are teaching them how to play the game. But the humiliation of defeat after defeat is somewhat softened by the recollection that Rugby football is the game 01 .ew ealand as cricket is the game of Australia. There is a natural affinity between the climate of New Zealand and the robust character of this outdoor sport. It has taken hold u ‘ he Co, ° ny ’ 3nd is P,a >' cd with enthusiasm g half the year. The Victorian winter is much more favourable to football than the same season in New South 'Vales and Queensland. Experience proves that it will be difficult to thoroughly acclimatise the game in these northern co onies. \\ e shall, probably, have to be content with what superiority we can win in the cricket field. The best team of cricketers we could send to New Zealand would be as triumphant there as the visiting footballers are here, and it snort If C °' ony C3n bear the palm in its own Particular P , n 13 ” 0t pleasant to beaten at anything, but the splendidly trained young fellows from across the water hate not had reason to complain that their skill and prowess are

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not keenly and heartily appreciated. Those who watched the game last Saturday possibly went to see our fellows win; those who may go next Saturday—and we trust thousands will be present—will go to see the visitors play, for they give an exhibition of football such as has never been witnessed in Australia before , and they are an ocular demonstration of the physical manhood which is being developed in New Zealand. If the intellectual development is correspondent, there will be a fine struggle for manhod supremacy between the continental and the island colonies. It is safe to say that in New Zealand we shall have a dangerous rival as to (he quality of our native-born population; meanwhile, the interchanges of sport will contribute not inconsiderably to the growth of friendly sentiment. The miles of water which separate New Zealand from us are a much more formidable obstacle to intercourse than as many miles of land would be. There is enormously more migration of population on this continent than between the continent and New Zealand. Voyages are being shortened, but nobody can tame the ocean or protect the human stomach from the agonies of mal dc tner. But the Britain of the south will always be politically associated with the Australian colonies, and therefore we should eagerly seize what few opportunities offer to foster the friendly feeling which will help to maintain a friendly political relationship. In this direction the offices of an annual series of football matches, played alternately in the two colonies, should not be despised. The youth of each colony will become pleasantly interested in the youth of the other.”

I wish to draw attention to the following facts: that this team had very heavy forwards, and yet the lightest forward, Lecky, was one of the best; that though the team was essentially a dribbling pack (you will notice how dribbling is stressed in the criticisms of the players) yet of twentytwo tries gained by the forwards in the eight matches most of them were got by passing rushes amongst the forwards—rushes of a sort never dreamt of in New Zealand for the last thirty-five years, and that forwards took part in many of the passing rushes which ended in the eighteen tries

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DUNEDIN FOOTBALL TEAM WINNERS OF CHARITY TOURNAMENT, 1889. Back Row.—.l. Mill, I. Second Row.—J. H. Stephenson, W. Turnbull. Front Row.—F. Harper.

obtained by the backs. The forwards scored 22 tries out of a total of 40. In 190S, in the matches in Great Britain, the forwards scored but 34 out of 205.

As you read you will realise that there was more passing amongst the forwards in one of those matches than has been seen in all the matches played in New Zealand by New Zealand representative teams in the last thirty years. You will see that these men were complete footballers and could change their style of play, and that out of the scrummage there were no forwards in the modern sense.

They were big men, very big, but they were athletic men. Mr. Joe Warbrick complained, in 1893, that the men coming along were not athletic, and that footwork and kicking were going out of the game, to the great detriment of the latter. It is important for the big man to be a good dribbler, for while the ball is on the ground he cannot be tackled, and your long man’s weakness is in his long legs. This opinion will be endorsed by my old friend Tom Lynch, in my view the finest, sunniest, all-round athlete we ever saw in Otago, in spite of his six and a quarter feet of longitude. The old players who were big men knew this; the modern players don’t, but, if tacklers are ever bred again, they will know too.

Notice, too, that these men did not object to travel all night and play next day; that they did not require masseurs and trainers and the like. Again, though big, strong men, it was observed that they did not offend by foul, rough play. They were decent giants, and, accordingly, no one grudged them their victories, and their visit was a successful one in all its aspects. Finally, when these giants came back from Australia what do we find written by the manager of the tour: “The day of the big forward is over, the day of the tight scrummage is ended.” That prediction seemed a safe one then, though now, on one of these modern battlefields, covered with its piles of collapsed tight scrums, it seems foolish enough.

c

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Note, too, the following:—

Hints to Players, New Zealand Rugby Football Union Annual, 1885, p. 82;

“Forward play has seen great alteration in the last year or two, the heavy powerful man being nearly superseded by the active and fast player. Passing and dribbling have become the leading features; the ball is rarely at rest, and consequently tight scrummages are out of date.”

“General,” p. 93:

“Talking and squabbling on the field only brings the game into discredit.

“Picking up in the scrummage is grossly unfair, and off-side play is contemptible.

"Players should make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the rules of the game.”

In 1888 the British team played 19 matches in New Zealand—won 13, drew 4, and lost 2. In only one match did they score double figures. They scored 82 points to 34 points.

In 1891 Maclagan’s British team visited South Africa and won all its matches, scoring 233 points to 3 points. Things have changed since then.

In the years preceding the break-away of the Northern Union, England could have sent away a score of teams of the same calibre. Stoddart, of the 1888 team, was the only one of that band to represent England against the Maoris in 1889. Yorkshire beat the Rest of England year after year, till it became almost a foregone conclusion that they would win. Even after 1895, for some years, amateur football was good, but the loss of the Yorkshire-Lancashire standard and the activities of the agents of the Northern Union soon began to tell its tale, and bad habits crept into English football, In New Zealand the game began to deteriorate in the early nineties, and in 1893 a New Zealand team was beaten by New South Wales for the first time. It was then that Mr. J, Warbrick, one of the greatest players and judges that the game has produced, published his opinion that

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ENGLISH FOOTBALL TEAM, 1888. Back Row.—O’Shane, Clowes, T. Anderton, Haslam, Thomas, Pinkclh, , J T Paul I ana Burnett Smith Second Row. T. Kent, A. E. Stoddart, Burnett, Seddon, Bank’s. Spelkman, 1 ront Row. —H. Eagles, T. Bumby, J. ISiolan, Williams.

1889 was the pinnacle year of New Zealand football; that the man coming forward was not so athletic; that the forwards did not use their feet enough, and that the backs did nothing but throw the ball about; and that he shared the opinion of h.s old captain, Mr. W. V. Million, that good kicking will beat anything else in the game. The South Africans seem to appreciate this last point.

In 1897 the Butchers' Team” came down from Wellington. That meant a going-out of science, and the introduction of a kind of big forward never seen in New Zealand football before, and a rough gladiatorial exhibition with suitable referees; a suitable audience can always be provided as the history of this world shows everywhere.

In 1902, when I first saw the game again in New Zealand after a lapse of about ten years, I was astonished to find the game played thus: The towards were all chained together in the scrummage, and when the ball left it the backs had a duel of a class. When the ball was held everybody waited till the two teams of forwards had collected and arranged themselves. If a player wished to arrange his head-gear the referee would be gracious. If he was tired and his team was in a tight corner ne had but to lie down and the referee would blow his whistle and visit him. Many people besides myself have seen a player lying on the ground squinting at the referee and finally reluctantly getting' up and going back to the game again.

o —&uuu, ogam. Whenever a forward saw the ball he kicked it as hard as he could, and raced after it as full of vain hope as a puppy chasing seagulls on the beach. When a back made a mark he ran away from it. Otherwise the first forward up ran at him and smote him on the chest with both hands, knocking him down; this was quite ceremonial. In the line-out men were pushed from one end of the line to the other, and a pleasant innovation was to “savage” the man in front of you, irrespective of where the ball might be. This was the way in which the unfortunate Southern forward, Bailey, lost his life. The ball was thrown far beyond him, but his vis-a-vis picked him up and pitched him on his neck. That

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interesting gentleman, the wing-forward, did what he liked in defiance of all rules. Referees did not seem to know, don’t know now, that the rules for backs and forwards are the same. The rules are different for the scrummage and the open. If a full-back gets into a scrummage he must obey the laws of the scrummage, and if a forward is out of the scrummage he must obey the laws of the open.

There was an interesting performance called “driving.” A fast man chased a slower towards the touch line. Instead of tackling him he pushed him in the small of the back and pitched him on to his face. If the carrier got rid of the ball to a team-mate the latter was fouled in the same way. I never learned the advantage of the method —perhaps it was fashionable and foolish, like the turning of one’s back to a free kick. Some players don’t value their eyes much. Tripping, striking, illegal charging, “putting in the boot,” were common offences. If you struck a man the other side got a free kick. If you were sent off the ground the Rugby Union might send you down for a week; but if you were a good player and the big matches were at hand, you might be sure of the good offices of some friend who would announce that for a man of your position, and singularly sensitive ideas of honour, what had happened already was enough, and more than enough, etc., etc., and—“poor fellow”! “A rare world, Mr. Rigmarole.”

Forwards couldn’t catch the ball; it is true they might have a chance but once a twelvemonth. What amusement they got out of Rugby Football I could never make out.

In the scrummage they punched one another, even teeth marks have been identified, and after the game “made friends” over a glass of beer, to the tune of that sweet refrain “We all do it.” The backs evidently laboured under the obession that the touch lines were the goal lines, and vice versa. Tackling tended to be high; line kicking by these one-footed kickers was poor, and finesse was a thing undreamt of. The captain of the team carried the ball on to the ground at the head of his men, and then was heard no more.

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In 1905, having satisfied myself that nothing would be done by the Otago Rugby Union, I left that body and coached the University team for a number of years—about seven or eight, I think. This team showed a better class of football, but their opponents were allowed all sorts of license. The Rugby Union officials were opposed to the team, and the opposition of a New Zealand referee was, and is, a very severe handicap, as many a visiting team has found to its cost. I remember well pointing out to a member of that august body, the Otago Rugby Football Union, that if the game played by the University team was to do any good generally, other teams should be forced to obey the laws of the game. The reply of the Rugby Union man was: “You’re winning aren’t you”? At the time I was not smart enough to excogitate a suitable reply; there must have been one, but I couldn’t manage it.

It was at this time that the famous 1905 team went Home. Of late years they lose their reputation somewhat, as is the course of Nature. There was some hesitation with regard to the 1924 team, but there was none about Mr. Hornig’s “Team of Stars’’—of 1928—the finest team that ever left New Zealand! Unfortunately, as an amused friend said: “There is only one thing more certain than that, and that is, that the next team will be the best, and that’s that.” American boost is very well planted in New Zealand.

In my opinion the 1905 team was very much the best of the three teams. None of the other teams had inside backs of the calibre of that team. They were its real strength. The forwards were, I think, better; they had the advantage of not being selected solely by the weighing machine. This team did not, however, dribble, a word never heard for a quarter of a century. If you doubt this, read the newspapers up to about 1922; didn’t pot—almost the same to be said about this; pitched their passes, and their forwards did not see their scrum half when they heeled. The day of awakening should have been at hand. They had, however, a triumphal tour, and played match after

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match, getting huge scores; only in Wales were they pulled up. In their four matches in Wale;s they could but score a surplus of three points.

This is where you can make a comparison with the Native team of 1888-89:

Wales v. Natives s—o v. 1905 N.Z. 3—o

Swansea „ o—s0 —5 „ 3—5

Newport „ o—3 „ 3—6

Cardiff „ 4—o „ B—lo

New Zealand Natives scored 8 points to 9 points.

New Zealanders, 1905, scored 21 points to 17 points.

Wales was, of course, much stronger in 1888. Wales had not suffered so heavily as the English Clubs, but she had suffered severely. In England, Rugby football had almost ceased to exist as a serious game. When I think of that wonderful back team that returned to us in 1889 —W. Warbrick, Gage, Wynyard, Madigan, F. Warbrick, Elliott, and Keogh—l can never see any back in the 1905 team displacing any of them.

After 1905, New Zealand football went its way well satisfied. Wales was a thorn in the crown perhaps, but judging by results all was well and New Zealand played football with no dribbling, no potting, with pitched passes and high tackling, with a high seasoning of foul play. Again the lesson might have been given, but Australia went to League. The Messenger group of footballers would have made short work of New Zealand, but they helped New Zealand in another way. In 1921, I think, the professional Australian team went Home to bring back the complete scalp of English Professional football. The York-Lancashire people have produced good footballers —none better —and the Australians rather failed in the big games, and the cause? —“the footwork.”

In 1921, when the Springboks played the famous, and to my mind, infamously refereed match at the Carisbrook ground in Dunedin, the wing-forward, I think his name was Donald, spent the whole of the afternoon kicking the ball from the side of the scrummage to the full-back, Morkel.

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The latter incontinently kicked it into touch over the wingforward’s head, as the latter rushed at him full of that hope I have alluded to. Both persevered, but for different reasons.

Shortly after that date the word “dribble” made a reappearance, but the thing has made no appearance yet. There is going to be much practice before it does. Good dribbling, like good passing, is difficult. It cannot be taught on a blackboard. Potting again made a re-appearance, but not of the Alick Downes class. It is only when the ball becomes controlled that such potters are produced. Still, in its way, the finest pot I ever saw was the one Mahony put over at the Carisbrook ground a few years ago for Wellington, a beautiful right-foot kick, close to the touch line from outside the twenty-five, the ground a little treacherous, two men to be evaded, and the ball bisected the bar very prettily. The papers next day enthused over the most prosaic tries, but not a word of Mahony s pot, and yet Mahony would never do anything better if he played football for a centurv.

We have arrived so far. The forwards, at any rate, have got some idea of keeping control of the ball, though the backs still lose it unnecessarily. Potting is to be considered decent again. What a wilderness some people would make of football! Now, if ye learn to tackle low; learn to pass, give up foul football and foul players; see that captaincy is necessary; that combination is necessary, that obedience is necessary—of practice I need not speak—and that the weighing machine is a poor selector, hope is dawning.

In 1882, a New South Wales team played seven matches m New Zealand; lost four—Auckland (twice), Canterbury and Otago; won three—Wellington (twice), Wanganui.

In 1884, the New Zealand team in Australia, as we have seen, won all its eight matches, three against New South Wales. This team, I think, was the finest team that ever left New Zealand. The Native team when it came back was perhaps the finest team that ever returned. A match

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between those two teams would have been worth seeing, and I have a sneaking feeling that the 1884 team might have won.

In 1886, the New South Wales team won two matches (Wanganui and Nelson) by narrow margins. Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, Canterbury and Otago beat them easily. The first Otago match was won by five goals, and on the Wednesday an Otago second fifteen beat them by two goals to nil. In this latter match the full-back, E. J. Austin, never handled the ball. He had to tackle one man, otherwise he would have had a rare experience. At that time Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury or Hawke’s Bay could have furnished second fifteens which would have done as well as Otago.

In 1884, nineteen players went to Australia and played eight matches without a loss. In 1888 the Maori team, with only twenty-five available men, played seventy-four matches in 168 days in Great Britain, when there was no Northern Union, and British football was football, of a class never approached since. Their achievement is easily the greatest performance ever put up by a travelling team of footballers. In 1893, twenty-three players went to Australia and played ten matches, and had to be reinforced by four players after they had lost the second test by 25 points to 3.

Perhaps readers will now be able to share in the feelings of J. Warbrick, who was watching the game decline as rapidly as it had culminated. J. Warbrick went into big football in 1877, at the age of 15, as full-back for Auckland, and played till 1894, when he last appeared for Auckland; one of the greatest three-quarter backs ever produced here, and a well-known judge of the game.

This decline was due to a Wellington decision. About 1891 the authorities there determined to favour the big men. After, as well as before, the Maoris, Wellington had developed a tendency to fight a little. Wellington players developed the idea hidden in the word “self-defence.” Everyone knows this noble art sometimes degenerates into something else. Wellington had trouble with the English

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team. We had no trouble in Otago, and found them fine opponents. I attribute any trouble that arose in Wellington to Wellington tactics. Well, about 1891 the cry in Wellington was for big men. Big men in response to the Rugby feeling of the late 'eighties were having a slim time- If you want big men you can get them, and you can play a slow game to suit them. The father of Frederick the Great wanted big men as soldiers, and he got his big men, but as soldiers they proved useless. The big man that came forward to the new call was not a big man of the Allan, O’Connor, O’Donnell, Millton stamp, with hands and feet and football knowledge, but just a plain big man. He was carefully tied up with some other big men, and they plunged and fought with the opposing pack and got the ball to the backs as well as they could; got from time to time tips from coaches, mainly information about fouling, which was the whole book of the prophets for the despised forward; football went its way, and after nearly forty years we have arrived, with a vengeance.

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CHAPTER 11.

THE GAME: THE MEANING OF IT: HOW TO PLAY IT:

PRELIMINARY SUGGESTIONS.

First. Realise that the kind of game you will play as boys and young men (a more important matter perhaps than you at present think) is determined finally bv you yourselves. You can decide what kind of football you want what men for referees, for captains, for directors of the fo a h C M ° U W '!l find g °° d footba " hard to » et and hard hold as m all things human that “continuous vigilance” denranded." he3r " S ° Kttl * is

... SeC ° nd u . , Learn the rules b y Playing as much as possible and thinking over situations that arise.

bird. In reading the rules keep in mind this point, that you must qualify for everything in Rugby football.’ For instance, you must be on-side to take a pass; to make a mark you must catch the ball cleanly at the first attempt and make a mark at the spot where it is caught; you cannot offer to run or kick or pass and then make a mark. You must go for the mark and the mark alone.

ourth,—ln most instances your opponents can qualify to beat you—a player of the other side mav cut off a pass when you are in a position to receive it; you jump for a mar a player tackles you before you can get down to earth again, and your attempt at a mark has failed

- —«*»• a umiK nas lanea. It you get this idea of qualification well set in your mind, you will have little difficulty with the rules, which are quite simple, but have been made obscure by much longeared interference in New Zealand.

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CONTROL OF THE BALL.

The guiding principle of all ball games is “ball control.” The best side at “ball control” will nearly always win. Now, you can kick, knock, or throw a football, or run with it, each under certain conditions. By learning the rules you will find out what those conditions are.

Running with the ball is slow, but control should be excellent; passing and kicking are much faster, but control is difficult. The pace of the ball is the pace of the game. It is, therefore, easy to see that the side which passes with accuracy, and kicks with accuracy; i.e., controls the ball at top pace, will play a faster game than faster runners who do not pass and kick with accuracy. You don’t require to be a “ten-seconds” man to make an excellent footballer.

HOLDING AND HANDLING A FOOTBALL.

Hold the football lightly, with the long axis on palms and wrists (lightly means safely). Play with it, throw it in the air, catch it with one hand, with both hands, and see if you can gradually manage to catch it so that it falls at once into the proper position. Whenever you have five minutes to spare play wdth the ball thus; by and by you will get great confidence and freedom and you will feel at home with the ball in either hand.

A football can be blown up too tightly. In the old days it was blown up by mouth—it was difficult to do this. A too tightly blown football is harder to handle, dribble, or kick, and it bounces unkindly. The use of the pump is often abused and many footballs are so hard that they hardly yield to the pressure of the fingers. The tension of the air in a football is a very important matter and it would be great gain if some one could make a football, the tension of which could be tested as the tension of a motor-tyre is.

THROWING.

Stick a walking stick in the ground; put a cap on top and stand five yards away with your left shoulder turned to the cap. Hold the ball away from you in both hands, with the

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forearms horizontal at your waist level, which will be about the level of the hat. Now swing the ball at the hat with the right hand. Look at the hat, see that the forearms are horizontal, and that the pass goes flat to the hat without any trajectory. Make the movement smoothly, don’t let the ball spin for it is then harder to take. Don’t jerk, but let your feet shift and the body move with the pass, so that the right foot goes after the ball. Gradually increase pace and distance up to ten or twelve yards. If you can get a companion you can do away with the stick. You will look at his hips in this case, and you will endeavour to hit him on his lowest waistcoat button every time.

Now get to work with the left hand. You will find this harder. Don’t force anything, and that which seemed hopeless at first will soon prove practicable.

When you have both hands under control and the ball seems as safe as a church in your hands, lower the hands and pass from close to your body. If you do this at first you will probably tend to lift your passes, which will make them difficult for the receiver to deal with. Now get three or four men who have learnt to throw the ball, and work in concert. Run down field and pass to the man on right or left, make sharp quick calls, and let the receiver come up at top speed as he calls, and let call and response be as close together as possible. Test one another’s handling. A calls to B, and on the instant of B’s receiving let C call to B, so that B hardly touches the ball. This is the way, and the only way, to get “snap” into your play, and football without “snap” is “punk.” Practice cutting across one another and calling, passing to men going away from you and to men coming at you. You will find out thus the pace necessary for your pass, and will not pelt a ball at a man close to you as one so often sees done. When passing, look at the player’s hips and not his face. Be careful in all this passing to keep on-side so that everything would satisfy the strictest referee. Let the pass go back half a yard or so; run no risk of offending.

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Now have the ball heeled back to you. Learn to bend your knees and snap it off the ground. Watch a hen retrieve a grain of wheat, in default of a Keogh, to show you how it is done. Pass from where you squat, don't stand up to pass, for time is flying.

Then practice a small movement. B is carrying the ball, A is a tackier, C is backing up B. Four yards or so from A, B breaks suddenly to the right. A has to go for him, and C comes up with a rattle and receives from B. If this is done properly B and C should be together again with the ball, and A, who has to start from nothing, is far in the rear.

Now do this passing, turning to left and passing to the right.

You will observe that you can steadily look at the tackier and give him the impression that you are going through him, and still see your support a couple of yards back out of the tail of your eye. With practice you will be able confidently to take advantage of this, and will, to the superficial observer, seem to throw your passes without looking. The passes, however, will arrive all right, and will be much more of the nature of a surprise to the opposition.

THE ONE-HANDED v. THE TWO-HANDED PASS.

The one-handed pass was the “sine qua non” forty years ago. The slow, ungainly, uncertain, ineffective twohanded pass was never seen in good company. The onehanded pass is much quicker. Take a man who has practised one-hand passing and let him stand with a twohanded passer five yards from a receiver. At the word

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of command let them both throw. The one-handed throw will be there first, and easily first. The one-handed pass is flat and can be refused, a very important matter, as we shall see. The one-handed pass can be made altogether under cover of the body, a two-inch flick of the wrist will send the ball five yards; in the two-handed pass the ball leaves the side, and in good football would be snatched from the passer’s hand in many instances. The one-handed pass leaves the passer in better balance, so that he can act more quickly after the pass has gone, and makes a twosided player of him; the two-handed pass throws a plaver out of balance and makes a one-sided player. Watch modern football and see how the ball is always making for the attacker’s left hand touch-line. There is an intimate connection between pitched two-handed passing and across-the-field running. Throw passes with one hand and you will get straight runners, across-the-field running is necessary for poor passers. Run down at a man waiting to tackle you and as your left foot comes forward, throw to a man backing you up on the right a one-handed pass, i.e., with the left hand. Increase your pace and as the ball goes see what beautiful balance you are in.

Now do it with two hands; you will fall down, or to avoid that, you will slow down. If you don’t go fast enough to fall down, examine your balance as the ball leaves the hands and you will find you have none at all, a touch on your turned left shoulder would twist you round like a teetotum. The explanation is simple. In one-handed passing the arm and shoulder not in use balance the arm and shoulder that are in use; in two-handed passing there is no such balance. One-handed passing can be made very sudden by practice; two-handed passing is always well advertised. When Keogh passed, for a fraction of a second one hardly knew whether he had parted with the ball or not. Sometimes, it is true, he had done both. The way

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he would flick a ball at you and take it again in the other hand had to be seen to be believed.

A one-handed pass, because it is so fast and so flat, can be fired through a hole impossible to the two-handed passer. I suppose many an old forward who had learned the golden rule of playing in the low plane, has had the supreme joy of pelting the ball through one of those holes one sees down there, into the hands of a cunning centre, with the goal nicely in front.

Pitched passes are slow through the air, come at all sorts of heights and create a tendency to stop or slow down the receiver. The flat, low, fast pass makes you reach out and gallop for it. There is nothing hypothetical in all this. It is practical. Put your hat on a stick, stand ten yards off and score hits. In ten minutes everyone will be trying to throw with one hand. If you pitched a pass in front of the greatest three-quarter that ever played in New Zealand, A. E. Stoddart (I was about to say or anywhere else), it was gone. The fast, flat one wasn’t quite safe, but the slow curved one was a “gone coon.”

Another objection is that in two-handed passing the ball is obscured by the arm next the receiver, and the ball, in long passes, goes altogether out of view of the receiver as the two arms swing away from him. In the one-handed pass the receiver has an uninterrupted view of the ball.

There are many beautiful movements impossible for the two-handed passer, e.g.: you are in your opponent’s twentyfive, one of your forwards, carrying the ball, crosses your centre three-quarters with a couple of men after him, as in the figure; suddenly he sends the ball back to the centre, who pots a goal at his ease. A two-handed passer would have to turn round to do this and you can always see what

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a two-handed passer is going to do, soon enough to have a good chance of countering the movement

Note.—Continuous lines indicate movements of player; broken lines, passes.

C drops back a little or stays where he Is according to B. B 2 movement. C gets into such a position that when A throws back a right-handed pass under the left arm B, Bj will not be in the line of fire. In figure (iii.), B, and Bj have turned, but C has already potted.

Two-handed passing advertises itself too much, and that is one of the reasons why modern football is so uninteresting. The unexpected never happens. The twohanded passer cannot get rid of the ball quickly; he will be smothered with the ball when a one-handed passer would have heaps of time. Footballers have become ossified. They see nothing, they attempt nothing. As an old player remarked to me after watching for an hour and a half this across-the-field procession, like the carrying of buckets of water to a fire that apparently won’t go out, “it seems to me as if the two teams had studied a plan together and come to a mutual arrangement.” You cannot have too much practice at passing, especially practise rapidity of handling, which is such a factor in fast passing and in all artistic movements.

The old forward passing rush, where two or more players go up the ground on parallel lines and the ball is thrown from one to another, the thrower stopping himself by sticking his front heel in the ground just long enough to enable the receiver to get in front of him and return the pass—this pretty, effective movement is possible only with

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AN ILLUSTRATION OF OBSTRUCTION.

one-handed passing—a splendid movement in practice to teach quick starting and stopping and very effective on the field.

Here is a story of the 1888 English visitors, which has the merit of being true: —

The English team had two fine, quick, heavy half-backs —Nolan, 12st. 121b.; Bumby, 13st. 51b.

Bumby was the more experienced player, Nolan, I think, the more dangerous.

Early in the game against Otago Nolan, in some stress, threw a slowish pass with two hands to Bumby, who was immediately smothered, and Bumby complained in an admonitory voice, “One ’and, Johnnie, one ’and.” ■

KICKING.

Remember in drop kicking that the long drop kicker gets his back into it and goes clean through the ball. Look at what you are doing and not where you hope the ball is going, especially at first. Practise kicking into the wind (read of the distances Joe Warbrick and Darby Ryan could get under such circumstances); high kicking for following up; flat kicking for distance; screw kicking. Practise with each foot till one is as good as the other. A two-footed kicker is hard to stop, a one-footed easy. I do not recollect anyone stopping a punt or drop kick of that wonderful line kicker, J. B. Thomson. I never knew which leg was going, and I always found it was the other one.

In drop kicking for touch use the foot away from the touch line; face up the field and bring the ball across with the swing of the leg, so that the ball is always running touchward; in these days of Northern Union imitation, this is of supreme importance in touch line kicking.

Get your left leg going properly. You will never make a back if you don’t; you will never be more than halfbaked. Run and kick; run fast and kick in stride; pick up and kick; catch and kick quickly. Have the ball thrown to you, kicked to you from all sorts of angles and kick on a mark on the touch line. If you do this with assiduity.

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D

by and by, on a new ground, in all sorts of weather conditions, you will in a few minutes know what you can do on the day, your kicks will travel in the field of play and just make the touch, instead of crossing the touch-line and landing on the other side of the fence, or worse still, never reaching the touch at all. In the Otago matches against the Englishmen, on how many occasions did Jack Thomson take us from goal line to goal line with two beautiful punts? What judgment he displayed; every foot of length with the first and never touch in goal with the second.

The sop thrown to Cerberus of the North must have been eaten by our players, for it has poisoned our kicking and matters will only grow worse till the foolish rule is omitted. The Northern Union game, as played in New Zealand, is, to me, poor foot-racing spoiled by bad starting. Some people call it spectacular. The introduction of the touch rule into Rugby Football has not made Rugby Football spectacular.

Rugby Football is too good a game to be dominated by the caprice of the crowd, who know nothing, and as long as something is going on, and the half-crown bet is going right, or the box of chocolates is holding out, are perfectly satisfied.

The Rugby Union wants to satisfy the expert He wants to see ideas, combination, good defence and good attack —the clean football that is found in the company of these excellencies. He will be satisfied with a draw and, perhaps, numbers many draws amongst the greatest games he ever saw, and would not wish them other than draws. Don’t drop kick when you should punt. Kicking into opponents is a common vice now-a-days—learn to form a better judgment and don’t just kick and take the chance.

PUNTING.

No one knows where a punt is going to now-a days. In big matches you often see it go back over the kicker s head when he intended to place it where the forwards could

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go after it. The punt must be controlled like everything else. Practise the short, high one, the long, low one, the punt to the centre, using, as a rule, the foot away from the centre, the one over your head, very useful for a half-back when his hands are very full at the back of the scrum and a punt that is hard to stop. Remember you have an ankle joint, learn to use it in punting.

PLACE-KICKING.

It is a great pity that we introduced the Northern Union rule allowing the placer and the kicker to be the same person on the occasion of penalty kicks. Anything which does away with combination is a step in the wrong direction. The doing away with charging is also to be deprecated—a sop to weak refereeing.

In place kicking, kick under service conditions, i.e., with a placer, as much as possible. First, turn on your heel and cut a smooth cup out of the turf. The ball will always lie motionless in such a cup, whereas it often rolls in the rough depression made by hammering with the heel. The placer lies down on the side of the kicking foot. With a right-footed kicker the placer has his right hand in front and above and his left hand below and behind. When told to put the ball down, he does so and immediately takes his hands away horizontally. He must be especially careful not to lift the left hand, which may get in the way of the view of the kicker. If the ball rolls he supports it with the front hand, which lies below the ball and supports it as on an inclined plane. Never put the ball down with the hand held on top—a goal under such conditions is a miracle!

For short kicks many kickers stand. X think the balance is better if one step is taken, but here, as elsewhere, experience must guide the individual, as also in the tilt given to the ball. I think, however, that the kicker sees best what he is doing when the top of the ball is farther from him than the bottom of it. For long kicks that position is certainly best. It is so easy to spend all your power on merely rotating the ball in the vertical, or better

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than vertical position. Jack Thomson was a very long place kick. He placed the ball almost flat, the far end just slightly raised.

The foot off which you kick should not quite reach the level of the ball, so that the toe of the kicking foot has just cleared the ground as it reaches the ball and the risk of stabbing the toe into the ground in front of the ball is done away with. Try to get a straight ball with no hook in it. Let the boot go clean through the hall with an even swing; don’t stab at it.

A good plan is to make up your mind, after making allowance for wind, the direction of your kick. Then pick out a mark a foot in front of the ball on that line. Get your foot, the axis of the ball and that spot on a line, cut out the goal and pin your eye on the spot on the ball on which you intend to put your boot, don’t hurry, but go clean through the ball with the foot and be sure to keep your eye fixed on the ball. Many kicks in football are mulled because at the last moment the player lifts his head, thus disorganising his whole movement. Half the trouble in this world has been said to be due to taking the second step before taking the first. Here is a good instance, see your foot go into the ball—the first step. The referee’s whistle will, I hope, announce the successful second step.

If a no charge is whistled and the ball is on the ground, let the placer grab the ball. Kickers under such circumstances have been known to handle the ball and disqualify themselves.

DRIBBLING.

Every footballer should be able to dribble. How often could backs get out of dangerous positions if only they could dribble?

Take a football rather slackly blown up and walk about with it between your feet, using the insides of the latter—when you are going faster ankles and legs come into play. You can do this in a yard or in a room. After you begin

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to feel you have a foot on the end of your leg and not a boot merely, get moving faster, keeping the ball about a yard in front of you and giving both feet a good share of the ball. Keep the ball moving as a boy keeps a hoop trundling. With practice you will be able to go as fast as you can gallop. When going fast learn to stop the ball with one foot and then carry on again as you will have to do sometimes when charged from the side. Now run at a stationary ball and learn to move off smoothly with it. This is the most difficult part. Have the ball thrown to you or kicked to you from all sorts of angles and learn to stop the ball with feet and thighs or belly, so as to be able to start dribbling from any position.

Now start dribbling in concert; good forwards play in paraded lines, bad forwards in a mob. Dribbling is very hard to stop because the dribbler cannot be tackled and he can play the ball forward.

A dribbles down to an opponent and passes the ball at the opportune moment to his support, C. C carries on and meets D and transfers back to A, who is again in position, and so on.

S: ou must learn to dribble fast, for the dangerous man is not in front of you, it is the opponent overtaking you who runs past you and flops on the ball at your feet. He stops more dribbling rushes than anyone else and was the man "ho was most feared in the old days when players dribbled. In dribbling learn to do your bit, to come in and get out. If, instead of keeping your place, you go after the ball after you have transferred it, you only become a nuisance. “Never dribble over a goal line, the other side will force

S3

it,” was an old rule and a good rule. When you get in the twenty-five, therefore, you want the ball in hand. Now very few men can chase a ball and pick it up while attaining any speed. As a rule a knock on is all that results. The best picker up I ever saw was Tom Lynch, who seemed to be able to pick a ball up at top speed, no matter what its direction or pace was. After forty years you will find that capacity of his mentioned whenever old footballers compare notes, so noticeable in this respect was his superiority to all other players. Now, if you can’t be a Tom Lynch, you must try something else, and you have a choice of two methods:

1. Stab the ball off the ground with your toe, w’hich comes in from the side and cross kicks the ball right oi left for a member of your team to catch;

2. The man at the ball passes the ball with one foot, stops, stoops, and as the ball rolls into his hands, gives it to a man coming from behind. If this is done well there is little loss of pace and is another exemplification of the triangle.

CATCHING.

The ball is caught in the hands, as a cricket ball is caught, and the give of the hands, arms and body make the good, smooth catcher in football as in cricket.

In wet weather, with a slippery ball, the forearm, chest or belly are called into assistance. Some people derive a benefit from the use of mittens when the ball is slippery.

The ball can often be taken in one hand to save time, when a man is going away with a pass or a low kick; and also sometimes with hand and flank, where the other hand is wanted to fend off a player who is very close to you as you take the ball. Try catching the ball in all positions and watch it right into your hands.

There used to be dozens of players in Dunedin who hardly ever missed a ball they could get a hand to. Now-a-days when no one seems to practise anything, the way plain catches arc missed is scandalous. Learn to judge the

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flight of a ball in the air; starting quickly will get you to many a ball while it is still in the air, and how important that is. It is, perhaps, the outstanding feature of all great full-backs. The greatest full-back seen in this country was W. J. Warbrick and that was one of his great accomplishments. In receiving passes, learn to step away or sway away from hard fast passes. The hardest pass is thus made quite easy, whereas if you hold out two rigid arms or prop your body at the ball you cannot hope to secure it.

In accepting a pass learn to deceive. Stoddart often beat a man by the way he took the ball; sometimes he would go right through it and again he would swerve away from the ball and gather it in with one hand at the last moment. Another virtue of the flat pass is that it gives the receiver chances that the pitched pass can never give him. "What a beautiful pass Tabby Wynyard used to give you! Like a wedding present wrapped up in tissue paper!” Whoever made that remark knew something about Rugby Football, Come into your catches like cog meets pinion. With good passing and good catching the ball is always making the player do his best. The lower the plane he is in when he receives the harder he can hit and the harder he is to tackle.

THE PUNT-ABOUT.

Forty years ago these things were all learnt in the punt-about—one ball and thirty or forty performers. If you wanted much ball you had to go after it. The captain would order ten minutes dribbling, during which time everybody was trying to get control of the ball and keep it; then drop kicking, punting at discretion, heeling out, passing out, line outs and so on.

Before all matches most of the members of the teams were on the ground half an hour before the start of the game and players and spectators took part in the puntabout, which lasted till the game started.

In the old days Dunedin numbered amongst its nonfootballing population many excellent catchers and drop

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kickers. Naturally such spectators were not ready to enthuse over a man who made a plain catch, as the crowd is now-a-days, and, to the great benefit of the game, criticism was more in vogue than adulation. The punt-about should be reintroduced into New Zealand Football. It needs it very badly. There a man was taught to obey, to learn the A.B.C. of football as it can be learnt nowhere else, to learn it under service conditions. He learned to use his body and use his wits, and the importance of sureness, alertness and “snap” were being impressed on him every moment. The punt-about made the Otago High School footballers of the eighties. It started half an hour or more before school went in and was continued till sundown, with the necessary breaks for school. It made a great school team then and would make one again if it was properly re-introduced, I occasionally see boys kicking a football about to-day, but the old vim and competition have gone. The bigger boys seem to act as if the whole affair was beneath them. Bring back the right punt-about and the clumsiness and want of alertness which characterise present-day school football will vanish.

TACKLING.

You tackle a man because he has the ball, but never forget that it is the ball you are after. The old rule was “The ball alone if possible; if not, ball and man.” No player who is continually tackling men who have parted with the ball should get in a good team.

Keep your eyes open, see where the ball is (we are considering the ordinary tackle from the side), and go at the carrier from the side, and, if possible, a little behind, so as to make his fend less formidable; keep your hands back and get right into him, right through him, right shoulder to right hip. The blow with the shoulder should come in like a punch. I like to say that the difference between good football and bad football is the difference between a punch and a push. The left hand and forearm takes the carrier's left leg, the right hand goes across in front

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higher up to block the pass. The tackler’s head goes to the back of the man tackled. All these movements fuse into one another. A man so tackled will go down as if he had been mowed down. Don't show your arms too soon. Jack Thomas, boxer-like, would use your arms to lever you away from him and powerful men would brush aside your arms and you at the end of them, so keep your hands back, your eyes on his hips and go in with a vim. Don’t get half-way and plop down and reach; get up to him and hit; go through him, over him, smother him. Don’t be satisfied to hold him by one leg while he, still erect, is looking round for someone to pass to —a player in such a case looks very helpless, like a moderately inebriated man embracing a lamp-post. Do the thing properly—get there, not half-way there. When you are there, don’t forget about the ball; on your feet in an instant if the player still has the ball and stand over him till he parts with it, as he must do, and lets you away. Don’t start dragging him. It is too stupid for words; you are trespassing on the referee's functions. If the player does not part with the ball the referee will free-kick him or give a penalty try against him if he knows his business.

Obedience to this rule would do away with half the piles of men which disgrace our modern football fields, and make the game as slow as a funeral. Suppose you get your man, but he has just managed to get rid of the ball, you are still in a good position. With practice you will find that in this tackle you finish on your hands and feet, much in the same position as a man starting out of holes in a sprint, and you can follow the ball with hardly a break. How often has one seen a fast tackier get three backs one after another like that?

The smallest man can tackle anything if he has the necessary fire, velocity and knowledge. J. Dumbell, who went to Australia with the 1884 team, w.«s a small man, but no man ever stepped on to a football field he could not spread. It was tackling of that description that made Wellington so hard to beat in the early eighties.

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Remember, you must watch the hips; where the hips are the man is. He has not necessarily gone in the direction in which his face has turned, though you may have. Keogh would run straight at a man, about three yards away turn his head, the tackier w'ould go to the side of the turn and Keogh would go straight on over the very spot where the tackier had been standing. Look at the hips and you won’t be dummied.

TACKLING A CHARGING RUNNER.

Don’t try to hit him in the stomach with your head, you may get his knee instead. A favourite method nowadays is to stick out the arms, drop the head on the chest and await the onset —I fancy sometimes with shut eyes. Instead of that, watch his hips, get your head to one side and get your left shoulder to his left hip as your arms go round him. Unless close to the goal line, a heavy blow is not needed. If you stop his left side the right tends to carry on, and twists him off his feet. Near the goal line you must go in hard if you want to stop him dead. What a tackier was W. J. Warbrickl Keogh, a great admirer of Warbrick, once said in his quaint way, “That Billy would tackle a brewer’s dray w T ith two horses in it.”

Stopping One Side.—Use the principle everywhere, especially in fending and charging. Always hit the proper side, the side which crosses his legs, and he will come down of himself —hit the wrong side and he will roll on to you. If you have room and the man is heavy and lifts his knees, you may side-step him and take his legs as he passes—a favourite method with Alick Downes, and he did it just about perfectly, as in fact he did most things.

When a strong runner is running on a touch-line never try to bump him out, tackle him. People used to try that with Whiteside, who was a magnificent fender, and found themselves on the ground, watching, if they were still capable of being interested, Whiteside convincing some other gentleman of the futility of such a procedure. G. B. Stohr, who played for the Otago High School Team in

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1885—the first year they played seniors, was another touchline runner. Stohr was low set and when moving at top could go down and pick a low tackier off the ground with his shoulder. I have never seen anyone else who could do that —Stohr was a very difficult man to stop; what present day tacklers would do with him I do not known In 1888 Stohr and Whiteside played for Melbourne against the 1888 British Team. Whiteside noticed Stohr’s penchant for the touch-line, and in some conversation between them, Stohr said that he liked running down a touch line, but did not know why. “I know why,” replied Whiteside. “If you run down a touch-line ninety-nine players out of a hundred wdll try to bump you out and God help them if they try to bump me out.” Don’t be one of the ninety and nine.

This question of tackling is very important. Tackling grows weaker and weaker. In big matches you see players pushed off by a hand in the face, and in many cases players are quite erect as they go across at a man, and are content to make little half-hearted dabs with one hand at him, as if he were a tack and they thought he wanted some tackhammer treatment. The Rugby Union should import the American leather running man apparatus with a few kinematographs of tackling, America being the only place where the old low, hard tackling and the hard one-handed throwing are still maintained. Practising tackling, curiously enough, generally leads to accidents, though such accidents are rare on the field. One warning: Don’t try to hurt the man you tackle. There is a difference between a clean hard tackle and a dirty hard tackle. Be smooth and business-like; remember you are after the ball and that the man is a good fellow whose eyes you would like to be able to look into after the game is over. Don’t tackle a man after he has got rid of the ball. It is very annoying to the man tackled, and your side want you on your feet doing your duty somewhere. Time spent in fouling is in the end time lost.

Big men often tackle differently; they come over and smother the man and ball like a net. Big men do not

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tackle as well as small men as a rule, and yet one of thtallest players we have had was one of the best defensive Payers we ever had. I do not suggest by this that Tom Lynch could not attack; far from it.

Have nothing to do with “high flying tackles.” You have a bad chance of tackling the man and a good chance ot breaking your neck.

SCRUMMAGING

Let me try to give you an idea of the old pack. The two front rankers went down: left—left foot forward- right -right foot forward, so that the push of both was thrown on the line passing from before, backwards through the loTf.v SCr , Umma » e - The front rankers got down low, left chest on left knee; right chest on right knee; arms . e ; ‘ he , back stra 'ght; shoulders higher than the 13 n ° W CallEd the lock S ot his bead between their thighs and his shoulders against their sterns. The others p.acked as in the figure:

All men had their front knee well bent, the proper knee to throw their push on the middle line, the other leg well back and nearly straight. This pack is much lower than i u PrCS . Cnt ay pack ' I” this pack every man can see the ball and is down to push. The pack is a wedge and its fundamental idea is to push. The side that wins on the push gets the ball. This does not depend altogether on weight, or even principally on weight.

The Otago High School packs of the late eighties could hold any scrummage in Dunedin; and they were boys of sixteen or seventeen. They got low, got in the upward and forward thrust very rapidly, as the ball came in, much more important matters than mere weight. The front rankers who get low can often get the opposing front rankers off

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the ground by lifting them on their shoulders. All the players have their arms at their side, and their bodies so snuggled together at the push that you could not find a place in which your hand would enter the scrummage. If you got it in as the scrummage tightened up, you would not get it out again until the scrum broke up. A big forward with his hand caught in the old school pack, standing waiting to get free, was no uncommon sight. This scrummage can push; each individual can do his bit. In the modern scrummage if you happen to put your arms around two loafers you can’t push an effective pound. Incidentally, by the old method, you soon find out who your forwards are and don’t rely on the weighing machine which has tossed New Zealand so much false coin. The old scrummage became eight men in a flash, as all saw the ball and all had their duties to do.

With the present wired up scrummage the wire has to be untwisted before you can get the cork out; whence the much discussed gentleman—the wing forward. If your push succeeds you go over the ball and your front rankers collect it with their front feet. Owing to the low position of the heads they can look in the face of their half-back. When he wants the ball he signs for it and one of the front rankers hooks it out to him, direct down the channel. He can send it back very fast. I have seen Keogh, when he was getting a great deal of attention from his opponents, drop back five yards and more from the scrum, and, on making the sign, Dave Torrance would kick the ball from the heart of the scrum into his hands. Compare that with the blind circuitous journey of the football now-a-days, as it slowly arrives at the back rankers and the half-back, in trying to pick it up, gets a heel in his mouth instead. The Maoris gave the ball to the lock to heel out. It makes little difference—the great point is rapidity of transference.

The Springboks of 1921 often pushed over the ball and left it lying stationary for the half-back to pick up—a bad plan. The faster the ball comes to the half-back the faster he can play.

Cl

If the other side get the ball and heel out

4 and 6 go forward to the left and 5 and 7 to the right, 8 will go to the spot he thinks best, generally the open to support 5 and 7. They clean up everything as they go. The half-back must get his pass away quickly, going one way and then the other is fatal.

The unwired scrummage, where every man sees the ball, and with forwards fast off the mark, make the close-up backs; they have to be clever to live there. Nearly all the tackling of the close-up backs should fall to the forwards and the half-back, who should never stay at the back of the scrummage when the other side gets the ball. He should be on the other back at once. We have seen in the account of the 1884 team how J. Roberts pounced on the opposing half.

My experience of coaching has taught me that it will prove hard to get teams to learn to scrummage in this fashion, because now-a-days players do not seem to be able to handle their bodies. Remedy; The punt-about.

Remember you must push on the ball, if you get off it or penetrate your opponents without the ball, you must get in behind it again by the shortest route. There are no specialists in this scrum —the first man up at the spot being the first man down. Hence another good line on selecting forwards. Do everything with a snap, don’t stand about like a working bullock, but get in where you are wanted and push.

The great advantage of the unwired pack is its mobility; one man can slip into another’s place in a moment. If the other side gets the ball and screws you can slip round to meet it. If your opponents, heeling out, get away with the ball, leave the sides of the scrummage and diverge

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like a fan, and clean up everything as you go. In a first class game there should be few set scrums. If the referee will regulate the game and not give scrums where he should give free kicks, remembering that no player is allowed to be on the ground without just cause, that the last man the ground he must immediately get up, that the last man down should be the first man up, the set scrum goes, had gone to .a great extent in the eighties. Those sacks on the mill, which are a disgrace to our present football, where no one seems happy till he gets on the ground, would be done away with and we would have some opportunity of judging of our forwards by their capability and not find ourselves forced to make the weighing machine our arbiter.

A nice even pack of men about 12 to 12i stone and about sft 9 or so make a pack very hard to shift, very hard to beat—the big little men of Wales that impressed Keogh so much; short, but big-chested; the tape is better than the weighing machine, plenty of heart room, quick, indefatigable. If a man is 13J stone and can stay with the game, well and good; 11 stone if clever enough, but an even pack is a great thing, and long forwards spoil good packs. The big fast man is better placed back, where he can get the breather that he generally needs occasionally.

Remember that the fast forward that really matters is the one that is hustling in the last five minutes after hustling all through the game. We shall find again as was found in 1884 that fourteen and fifteen stone men are as common there as they are in long distance running, of which, by the way, not nearly enough is done now-a-days in football training.

THE LINE-OUT.

One reads now-a-days of teams being beaten on the line-out, and newspaper reporters will tell you how often a team wins, how often it loses, the ball on the line-out during the course of a game. We believe in figures which, as a rule, prove nothing. Somebody gets the ball on the line-out; if the only result is a scrummage, as is generally

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the case after the usual “sacks on the mill” as a prelude, it seems to me that it matters little who gets the ball on the line-out, and that selecting a player for his line-out ability is selecting him on account of an excellence which has no value apart from statistics.

Now the line-out is a place for manoeuvres; openings can be made from the line-out, from the line-out matches can be won in the closing minutes of the game. Many of the schemes which have won or drawn games have centred round a line-out. The man who throws the ball in should be able to drop it nearly vertically into the hands of the man of his choice. He should stand at the touch-line with his left shoulder towards the line-out, with the ball held in normal position against palm and forearm of right side. The ball should be delivered in much the same way as the high delivery in cricket. The ball should not be pelted out anyhow. The thrower should be able to make about midfield.

Two rules for the line-out are important:

First rule. —When the other side throw in each forward marks a man closely and their close-up backs should be shadowed by yours, and vice versa when it is your throw in.

Second rule. —When you are attacking you throw deep to get opposite the goal and have two flanks to menace, your players standing three or four yards from one another.

When you are defending you make a shorter line, stand close together and keep the ball on the touchline, the position of defence.

You are in the enemy’s twenty-five, your throw in; line-out about three yards apart and keep your eyes open. If you happen to be ,a Coueite you may be permitted to repeat to yourself: “The ball may hit me any minute, I must be ready for it.” You see a back of the other side out of position, the thrower in should see it, the whole line should see it and the back who will be required should see it, and none should give notice of the fact. Suddenly the proper forward calls for the ball and jumps towards touch,

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CORRECT METHOD OF TACKLING.

CORRECT METHOD OF GETTING DOWN TO A SCRUM

and at the same moment the forward beyond him jumps out. If their markers move after them a big gap appears in the line-out, the back we have spoken of galloping into it and the ball falling in his hands and there should be something doing. If the moving forward's are not followed by their markers the ball will fall to one of them and he will do the best he can.

The line-out is no place to stand on your heels or to take advantage of for a more intensive investigation of that stick of Wrigley’s, a sight that always has a “truly rural” effect on me; it is the place for a live man on his toes.

Again it is your throw in. Leave a gap of five or six yards between your first and second man. If they fill the gap you have an odd man or two you can take advantage of—the second string to your bow. If they don’t fill the gap, suddenly your first forward on the line-out jumps back into it and gets the ball, or if his marker goes after him quick, a back comes forward and gets the hall in the place vacated by the first man.

Again your throw in, and in your twenty-five; make a short line. If the opposing backs stand back for a hopedfor attack, a low fast throw to your backs beyond the forwards is a promising move, provided your handling is good.

Your team's throw in in the enemy's twenty-five. A long line-out formed. You are first forward at the five yards’ limit. Remember the thrower in, though surveying the end of the line-out very intently, may think your vis a vis is a little lethargic and you must not be surprised if he suddenly flicks it to you from his waist-line while his eyes are still fixed on the horizon. If you catch it neatly and return it to him smartly so that he obtains a surprise try he won’t think any the worse of you.

If you are marking a tall man on the line-out, when he jumps for the ball watch him, and as soon as he touches it, knock him down with the shoulder tackle I have described. Dont start playing about his “massive shoulders," but go for his long, frail legs. If you find he grows tired

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E

of jumping, you may have a turn. Learn to jump late and quick, and as you get the hall turn in the air, bend your knees and fling yourself on the ground like a stone with your stern against your opponents thighs and knees. Lowdown there you will see beautiful holes to pelt a ball through to a centre three-quarter for a pot at goal or a passing rush; if you will but learn to use that rapid small occupier of space, the one-handed pass.

If a comrade gets the ball, move to him. He may start you off on a dribbling rush. Be quick! Be sudden l Break like a stick of sealing wax, not like a yard of liquorice. Be observant, but hide the fact.

There is no place where thought will pay better than on the line-out. Old players will remember that pastmaster of the line-out, Keogh. He kept people thinking. What would he not have made of those golden yards from touch line to first man? Here is a line-out manoeuvre that can win a match;— The first man in the line-out has been calling out for the ball in the midfield a good deal, backing out to your second man. His vis a vis has nailed him with the ball again and again; your second man gets further away from him as if he was tired of the nonsense. You reach their twenty-five, No. 1 calls for the ball and goes out. His marker, who understands his little game, goes at him, but your No. 2 suddenly takes a hand, crosses the back of No. 1 and catches the ball, thrown in rather later than before, and with the assistance of the thrower in should do something.

It will be observed that it is impossible for D' to do anything as D 1 blocks him.

If you get the ball on the line and can do nothing else, get down, dash forward and drop the ball; if you have Smart forwards they will be with you, and if you hang on

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you will stop the attack and merely gain a useless yard or two. Never do anything to stop attack! Of course, when defending you will be more careful how you do this.

Consider a moment. A team gets two chances, and makes them both; a team gets ten chances and makes none of them. You will find that when the principle of control comes to, its own again (the passing of fierce kicking by the forwards should mean the ushering in of that period, though the backs still seem to think that tne ball may be kicked anywhere, “finding a hole” the papers call it), the chances to score will grow fewer, and that the team that wins must seize its chances and it is to teach that point that I introduce here a set of results of English Football in 1884. There you will see how hard it was for beaten teams to score—how “nil” figures in the table. When I hear of matches with scores like 50-18, or 25-24, I have no hesitation in drawing the conclusion that the football was feeble.

List of Rugby Football matches in England, from New Zealand Rugby Football Annual, 1885, pp. 101-102:

Results of a Few Matches, Season 1884-1885. 1884

Oct. 17—Manchester v. Huddersfield. Manchester won by 1 try to nil. „ 25—Wellington College v Richmond. Latter won. „ 25—Marlborough Nomads v. London Scottish. Former won by 1 goal one try to nil. „ 31—Manchester v. Bradford. Bradford won by 2 goals 2 tries to 1 goal. „ 31 —Cambridge University v, Blackheath. Latter won by 1 goal to nil. „ 31—Oxford University v. Sandhurst. Former won by 1 goal 1 try to nil.

Nov. I—Middlesex v. Kent. Kent won by 2 goals to 1 try. .. I —Fettes College v. Blair Lodge School. Fettes won by 1 goal 1 try to nil. „ —Bradford v. Marlborough Nomads. Bradford won by 7 goals 4 tries to nil. .. —Bradford v. Oxford University. Drawn. 1 goal each.

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Nov. —Bradford v. Cambridge University. Bradford

won by 3 goals 3 tries to nil. B—Woolwich8 —Woolwich v. Sandhurst. Latter won by 3 goals 1 try to 1 try.

B—Blackheath v. London Scottish. Drawn. 1 goal each.

B—Yorkshire v. Durham. Yorkshire won by 1 goal 1 try to 1 try.

B—West of Scotland v. Glasgow University. For mer won by 3 goals 2 tries to nil.

B—Edinburgh University v. Edinburgh Academicals. Former won by 1 try to nil.

g—Fettes College v. Loretto School. Fettes won by 2 goals 2 tries to nil.

s—Oxford5 —Oxford University v. South Wales. Oxford won

by 1 goal 1 try to nil. n 12 —London v. West of England. London won by 2 goals 1 try to nil.

„ 12—Merchiston v. Blair Lodge. Former won by 2 goals 3 tries to nil.

15—London v. Oxford and Cambridge. London won by 2 goals 3 tries to nil.

15—Richmond v. Marlborough Nomads. Richmond won by 5 goals 3 tries to nil.

15—Lancashire v. Cheshire. Lancashire won by 1 goal 2 tries to 1 goal 1 try.

„ 15—Blackheath v. Hampshire. Blackheath won by 6 goals 3 tries to nil.

„ 22—Lancashire v. Yorkshire. Former won by 1 goal 2 tries to nil.

22 —Northampton v. Midland Counties. Former won by 1 goal 2 tries to nil.

„ 22—United Hospitals v. Liverpool. Former won by 1 goal 2 tries to 1 try.

„ 22 —Richmond v. Cambridge University. Richmond won by 1 goal 1 try to nil.

„ 22—Fettes College v. Merchiston. Fettes won by 5 goals 5 tries to nil.

„ 22—Royal Naval College v. Wellington College. Former won by 5 tries to 1 try.

„ 29 —Leinster v. Munster. Leinster won by 1 goal 3 tries to 1 try.

„ 29—Cardiff v. Swansea. Cardiff won by 2 goals 1 try to 2 tries.

„ 29 —Cambridge University v. Manchester. Former won by 1 goal 3 tries to 1 try.

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Nov. 29—R.1.E.C. v. London Scottish. Former won by 2 goals 1 try to nil.

„ 29—Edinburgh University v. Glasgow University. Edinburgh won by 3 goals 6 tries to nil.

„ 29—Somersetshire v. Blackheath. Latter won by 1 goal 1 try to 1 try.

Dec. 3—Oxford University v. Midland Counties. Oxford won by 2 goals 3 tries to nil.

„ 2—Cornwall v. Devon. Cornwall won by 1 goal 2 tries to 1 try.

„ s—Dublin University v. North of Ireland. Former won by 1 goal 1 try to nil.

6—Glasgow v. Edinburgh. Glasgow won by 1 goal to 1 try.

6—Leinster v. Ulster. Drawn. 1 goal 1 try each.

„ 6—Lancashire v. Northumberland. Former won by 1 goal 3 tries to nil.

„ 6—Blackheath v. Richmond. Drawn. No score

6—Bradford v. Swinton. Drawn. No score.

„ 6—Wakefield Trinity v. Dewsbury. Latter won by 1 try to nil.

„ 10 —Oxford v. Cambridge. Oxford won by 3 goals 1 try to 1 try.

„ 13—Harequins v. Old Cheltonians. Former won by 2 goals 6 tries to nil.

Clapham Rovers v. Sussex County. Former won by 1 goal to nil.

„ 13—Northampton v. Leicester. Former won by 1 goal 1 try to nil.

„ 13—London Scottish v. Royal Naval College. Former won by 2 goals 3 tries to nil.

„ 13—Halifax v. Broughton Rangers. Halifax won by 1 try to nil.

„ 20—North v. South (of England). South won by 1 try to nil.

1885. Jan. 3—England v. Wales. England won by 1 goal 4 tries to 1 goal 1 try.

.. s—Fettesian-Lorettonians v. Bradford. Former won by 2 goals to 1 try.

„ 10—Scotland v. Wales. Drawn. No score.

„ 10 —Glaucestershire v. Somersetshire. Former won by 1 goal 1 try to nil.

„ 10—Richmond v. Blackheath. Drawn.

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To look on the other side of the picture, how frequently to-day does the intelligent onlooker see the following:—•

1. Passing rushes break down at the same back the whole game through, due to his inability to catch, or another man’s inability to throw, or to a combination of two mediocrities? In football 2XO =0; never be tempted, like the small boy, to “stick it down, one.”

2. The forward who always tries to pick up in a dribbling rush and stops the attack?

3. The man who will never drop the ball when he should and gets held with the ball?

4. The man who is always in front at kick out and kick off, because he won’t run up with the kicker?

5. The man who does not get back smartly at marks and spoils the kickcr’s chance of availing himself of an opening?— The door soon closes.

6. The man who is always kicking the ball into the hands of opponents, even in front of his own goal?

7. The back who kicks the ball right across the ground away from his forwards, into the arms of the opposing wing-three-quarter; a gift try if he catches the ball?

8. The man who is always charging down his own side at the ball when they are managing quite well?

9. The man who, when he hears “my ball” from behind, pays no attention to the call and, instead of getting out of the way, enters into a collision?

10. The back who imagines that some day he will meet a man whose body will permit the passage of a football?

11. The man who always backs up too fine and gets off-side?

These things are not done in good football. The frequency with which they arc done now-a-days labels the play.

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Get into the punt-about; learn the A.B.C. of the game there and correct procedure will come, in the words of Keats, “Like the leaves to the tree,” and will come in no other way.

THE PLAY.

Having now learnt by practice to do the fundamental things, we can pass to the game, which is but a wise use of these fundamentals, where the prizes go to observation, sureness, method, celerity and surprise. We will suppose that the A.B.C. of football has been learnt. Without accuracy in these departments, training—even “intensive training” (what a word merchant man is!) —electrical massage, professional rubbers, advisers of all sorts, will get. you nowhere.

The goal is in the middle of the goal-line; two converted tries beat three unconverted; goals are more easily potted from the front than the side. The attack should, therefore, aim at being central —at any rate the final attack. Central attack brings in the opposing wings and leaves their team’s flanks in the air. From the central position you can threaten both flanks if you run straight, back up on both sides, and know what the runner’s movements mean; a man is not backed up effectively till he is supported on both sides. After the pass he should jump into the doubly supported position at once, so that all three can help. So the centre of the field for attack, the touch-lines for defence.

If you tan play so as to keep the defenders nailed down to one side of the ground, when you change the direction of your attack you are going for the goal and not the corner. One of the great advantages of a strong runner liable to go through is that he pins down the defence.

STRAIGHT RUNNING,

There is much talk about straight running now-a-days, and, as one would expect, you never see any of it. The football expert of the day by “straight running,” means running that gets the ball a few yards further forward, but

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when I speak of “straight running,” I mean “straight running,” or even better than straight.

Always aim at it. It takes you to the goal line more quickly, forces the defenders to more or less stationary positions and as they have to start from something approaching nothing diminishes their effective pace. It maintains or increases (better than straight), your distance from the touch line (your attacking area), so if you can t go straight because of opponents, get it to someone who can. Every yard you go across is limiting your field and your possibilities and the defence is moving across to block the movement.

If you are forced into a cross movement and you have to pass to the man on the touch line, turn in field before you give the ball to him, so as to turn him away from the touch line.

He can thus act more confidently and if the turn is made with due suddenness by both men, he may even slip his marker and be off for midfield with new possibilities.

BACKING UP.

If you are backing up a runner and he meets a tackier, if he goes to right he wants you on the left, and vice versa. If he is backed up on both sides he merely indicates by his movement who is to get the pass. The idea is to make

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the tackier go away from the direction of the pass, as in figure:—

B carries away A and passes to C. If tins is done at top pace B and C should be together again up the field, and A starting from nothing should be out of the hunt.

PRINCIPLE OF THE TRIANGLE.

Here I desire to draw attention to the principle of the triangle. Good forwards going down at a back B take up this relationship to one another, thus: —

but bad forwards converge on B in a mob, thus:—

The result is that B, who is generally taster than the forwards, goes, or feints to his left, doubles, and beats the forwards to the right as if they were one man. Now, fullbacks should never be allowed to do that—it should be fatal—but we see it done successfully again and again every Saturday. Where the forwards spread and the gaps are

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filled, as in the first diagram, the wise full-back will obey the old rule, “get in your kick”! Get a strong runner and send him into such an arrangement of players. He will never penetrate it, because each man is supported: if he beats one he is into his support.

This triangle is the foundation ol all good attack and defence. A strong runner is coming down the field, the wing three-quarter bars the middle field to him and drives him towards the touch line, the full-back comes up along the touch line, the final result as in figure:—

A the runner must run out or go into B or C. Here the touch line is the third member of the trinity. Old players will remember how beautifully that was worked by Lynch and Thomas on that wonderful three-quarter, A. E. Stoddart, in the first Otago match against the Englishmen, in 1888.

This triangle can assume all sorts of shapes, and merely needs players who see what their job in the formation is. The base may be turned forward or backward, as in figure:

A B C can become B C by A speeding A through the gap

Again the other side screws a scrummage and are getting away with the ball; the best way to stop the movement

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is for the first five-eighth to slip across to the blind side and the centre to come in:—

What happens as a rule is that if A is beaten, the first man to handle the ball is G, the full-back. What should happen is that Ais supported as in figure. Half-backs should see to it that on their call this position or a position of the sort should be assumed by the backs. Always adopt the safe method of defending and don t attempt it in haphazard style.

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ONE MAN ON THE BALL.

One man on the ball:

A is dribbling, B. C. and D. are supporting; he is perfectly backed up; K is coming up. Let him keep away from A B, C and Co. Let him say, “I think we are going to the left finally. I will get in position to cover up the A-C pass in case anything should go wrong.” The worst thing K can do is to charge after the ball, blunder into A, or if he does not do that, make B and C wonder what they are to do now that this elephant has broken loose and is leaving such a litter of destruction in his trail.

THE BLIND MAN.

The blind man.

A is running with the ball. He is perfectly backed up. D is the blind man running on the heels of A. This very important gentleman ought to be as stiff as Rip Van Winkle if ever he appears on football fields again. When A goes suddenly to right or left (let us say left), on meeting a tackier, D is seen for the first time, but C has already run wide to carry away his marker, and A passes not to C, but to the blind man, D, who suddenly makes his appearance. Movements of this sort depend for their effect on sudden passing, perfect understanding and snappy running. Even without D the triangle is a good proposition.

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KICKING OFF AND KICKING OUT.

The kicker-off should be able to use both feet and should not indicate where he proposes to kick the balk His aim is to give his forwards a chance to get to the ball before the opponents can handle it. Te , ° r " should go back with the kicker and run up with him. Waiting for the kicker to come up to them takes off thei pace and is a frequent cause of men getting m front of the ball.

The kicker kicks the ball obliquely and kicks it high, and three fast forwards, standing opposite to the landing spot of the ball, go down in a triangle, apex forward, the fastest man at the apex. The latter goes for the ball; if he catches it he turns in the air probably knocks down his opponent and immediately passes to one of his supports. If he is too late for that he tries to spoil the mark by tackling the catcher before he can get down again to make it. If the charged player gats the ball and dodges t e apex forward he is into the hands of one of the others. Three good forwards, with a kicker that knows his business should get the man with the ball nearly every time. Of course, in kicking off you naturally aim at the bad taker or one who does not like charging forwards.

The opposing side should cover the whole of the field. All men on the touch-line should be on the touch-line and not three or four yards away. When standing just inside the touch-line they can get anything possible for them, but if they stand out and the ball passes between them and the touch-line they are very liable to go out as they move towards the touch-line to secure the ball. The best forwards at handling and kicking go back with the backs so that the whole ground is thoroughly covered.

The present method of kicking off is strange. There is always a good chance of a try for the kicker's side if they would use their heads. Once in two or three seasons we see a weak attempt, but it always breaks down because of the half-hearted way in which it is made.

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In the closing stages of a game, if a fast three-quarter standing behind the kicker, dashes for the side away from his forwards, as the kicker pushes a high ball up that side, there is an easy try on. In the first match played by the Otago University team of 1905, or at any rate in one of the early matches, Adams kicked off in that way at my suggestion, and McPherson went in over the goal line on the other side of the ground without ever seeing anyone. For some years the Varsity Team forced other teams to defend every inch of their territory, but later Varsity Teams have fallen back into the ruck and the game, by arrangement, has been in full force for many years.

The attack can be launched from all parts of the field, but in your own twenty-five you kick for touch as a rule. A good kick should reach the other twenty-five easily. The champion drop kick, from kick to pitch is ninety-three yards, seventeen yards short of a football ground; that was done in Victoria. J. Warbrick and Ryan could send a ball seventy yards or more with either foot and their control was marvellous. Line kicking under such circumstances is much the best. While your forwards are toddling back up the line as your kick goes over their heads (for, of course, you kick to your forwards), their forwards, who have charged down at you, will have to gallop back to get to the line out, and racing up and down the ground has killed many a good forward team. “Good kicking will beat anything else in the game.”

For thirty-five years the New Zealand idea has been so focussed around the scrummage that the latter appears to be an absolute sine qua non for attack. This is very foolish. Everybody is ready for attack from the scrummage, but there are attacks to be delivered with much more surprise in them. They are turning up all day. Here’s one of them. How often, in watching a game, you see a dribbling rush or passing rush going away towards the side line and at last a man goes out or kicks out. Look at the disposition of the people against whom the attack was directed. The full-back is across on the touch-line,

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all the backs are pulled on to that touch-line, beaten forwards and backs arc making back and the attacking hacks are coming up into position. Now, if the forward, instead of running out, had swung round and hurled a pass out into the open there should nearly always be a try. as the whole of the other side of the ground is bare of defenders. A quick, good thrower would see in an instant where to put it, but any thrower that got the ball out fairly would be good enough. Chances from the scrummage! The New Zealand ostrich has his head badly hidden in that same.

OPENING UP THE GAME FROM THE SCRUMMAGE.

The half-back should never leave the scrummage except as a surprise, his general rule is to throw, unless when he punts for defence, and then generally over his head, which is the safest punt for him. The five-eighths and the centre should stand deep and run straight. The ball should not be thrown to the same man all day. The low, fiat pass can be taken by any of the players and can be refused by any of them. Supposing the first five-eighth is coming at the ball and he has a man on him, he can feint to take the ball, let it go further out to the second five-eighth, and then go inside his marker, who has missed him. He is then in a position to receive an inside pass from the second five-eights if the latter has evaded his opponent.

The pass from A in the direction of the arrow is good for them all and if they are clever the variations they can produce are astonishing. If the defending side come well

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up you must throw deeper or short punt over their heads. You must control these punts so that members of your team get there first.

One of the best methods is to throw deep over to the wing-three-quarter and let him come back—he is speedilly backed up on both sides, and it is a very awkward proposition for the defenders as they do not know where the ball may be next second.

In the diagram W receives from the scrummage and goes in the direction W-M. At M he has the centre and second five-eighth to his left and the first five-eighth to his right—at any moment he may leave the ball with a man he is crossing and then the ball is away at right angles. I think that in general terms the ball taken out wide and then brought back crossing the line of the attackers is the best move in Rugby Football. It is most confusing to the defenders as each defending man finds both his flanks vulnerable. Or again, if the first five-eighth gets the ball and the second five-eighth runs wide and suddenly snaps into the gap between the opposing markers as he receives the ball.

It was at the scrummage that Keogh, Gage. Elliot and Tabby Wynyard gave those wonderful exhibitions. The way they weaved on one another, their feintings and the pace of their passing was the high water mark of New Zealand near-back play.

When the Queenslanders played the Maoris they had no doubt about it. They said they saw the ball go in the

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AN ILLUSTRATION OF OBSTRUCTION.

scrummage and never saw it again. Keogh especially seemed to “have” and “not have” the ball. They were a wonderful group. They went at the defence and beat it. New Zealand football is now a little decrepit and eschews the fence and believes in sticking to the pavement, hoping that there is a way round .

This across-the-field football would have died long ago if the forwards had not been ruined. If, when the ball started across the field, a few fast forwards went back to where they would be wanted instead of running round two sides of a triangle as they do now, the across-the-field football would have soon received its quietus.

If the four men at the back of the scrummage get properly welded together and are mighty men of valour, your wing three-quarters are prone to have little to do and their work becomes more of a protective character. This straight running lets your own forwards into the picture and cuts the others out.

THE BLIND SIDE.

If you have a. good runner and taker on the short side, an occasional surprise pass to him may be of value, but if his opponent is quick and smarter it may be very dangerous. The best way is the indirect way. The centre stands deep between the two five-eighths. The ball is thrown, not pitched, to the second five-eighth who is deep and he makes for the open. Suddenly he brings the ball back to the first five-eighth, who hasn’t moved, and as the first five-eighth gets it the centre comes past him at top and takes the ball out of his hands and is off with the half-back who has gone up on the blind side, a forward or two, and the wing three-quarter of the blind side against the opposite three-quarter.

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F

B-A, pass from scrum to second five-eighth; A-D, his run on open side; D-E, return pass to first-five-eighth; C-L, run of centre taking ball from first five-eighth just as he receives it —wing and half coming up on blind side.

All sorts of variations of this movement are obvious enough, the fundamental idea is to run men in one direction, and then, with due rapidity, to get the ball away on the side stripped of defenders. With fast forwards coming from the scrum it would generally fail, but until the forwards are freed from their chains it is worth a trial. Don’t attempt to do this with two-handed passes for it will fail.

Of course there is nothing new under the sun. Nearly fifty years ago there was a good team ot the Armed Constabulary at the White Cliffs about forty miles from New Plymouth. Their half-backs used to throw the ball to one another across the scrummage; directly his team mate got away the other half got into position and many pretty tries were got by that way of working what is now called the blind side.

Keogh, at the back of the scrummage, would jump forward to take the ball, turn in the air and land with his back to the scrummage and close against it. In such a position he could see everything, and at the worst was in an excellent position for a defensive punt into touch. The great secret of good attack from the scrummage is rapid, accurate heeling, lightning passing, feinting and angledrunning. Where the defence is holding well, never forget the possibility of a potted goal from a pass to the centre

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standing deep. There have been teams whose defence was so solid that no tries were possible and the only chance was to see if you could pot a goal.

Some positions that occur are as indicated below:—

B is going down to a defended corner, backed up by A—the chance of scoring in middle line is doubtful. B runs infield and carries the ball on his left hip. A goes away with him, always heading him, but of course on-side, the defence comes out of the corner as shown by the arrow. Suddenly A turns, snaps the ball off B’s hip and is back in the corner like a flash. B must not pass the ball, he must allow himself to be robbed of it. If B makes no sign A will be over before his opponents are aware he has the ball. This is a pretty try and worth practice.

Play is at Y and ball is kicked to B (centre). If B makes to X touchline, with C on his wing, all the time he is running the defence is coming across in direction of arrow

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D. The further up the field B and C can get and the further away from X touchline the better the play. The wing C should run in to B, receive the ball and cross him, B going up on the wing; or C should call “my ball,” if he is close enough to get it on the full, and then off at top with B on his wing towards the middle of the ground. He is supported by B on his left and is getting into touch with his other backs on his right. The tendency is to hold the defence to the Y touchline. The carrier must not allow himself to get amongst the defenders if he can avoid it, but must rather skirt them. His first pass to the left to B may let B more infield again, and C is once more on the wing and the doubt as to his real intention is thus prolonged. You will frequently find yourself over the goal line near the goal post by this method, instead of having to struggle for a try at the corner, and it cannot be too often insisted that the conversion of a try is a very important matter. If you study the results of games you will soon convince yourself of this.

Beware of beating a player when a good pass is on you often find yourself in the middle of the enemy and with no opening.

C gets the ball from play at Z; B comes at him. He may jmk B and make a defensive punt back to his forwards and touch, but if he wants to attack he should pass at once. A goes up in the direction of the arrow and C cuts across him again for the open.

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Ihe ball comes to C: Leaving out of consideration a potted goal, if C runs for the free goal line with B on his wing they may get, probably will get, a try near the corner. If, however, C throws at once to B and B comes back at the goal. C should get an easy try near the posts.

Here, as in many cases, there is a great advantage of a transference, and it is this. The defenders are occupied with C, suddenly B occupies their attention and C tends to drop o«t of view. Suddenly he makes his re-appearance. Getting in and out with the due suddenness is very heartbreaking to defence. A sigh of relief to see that “he” has had to part with it—and then, Good Heavens! “He” has got it again. It will of course be noted that B coming back to the goal tends to keep defender’s left goal line clear.

Two men going down at a full back B, C carrying the ball and D supporting him. B sees what he has to do, but ten or fifteen yards away C passes to D and B has to think again. C may get in a position very difficult for the fullback.

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He may suddenly find that D is rushing him and C slipping away to his left for the pass. The old rule: Go down to a man before you pass, is a good rule, but it has many exceptions for players who are sure of their handling.

This position where two players are coming at a fullback is one in which pace is so valuable to a full-back. If he can once get between the two players, chasing the one with the ball, he is very likely to win after all. Never let your opponent get between you and the receiver, get between your opponent and the receiver, otherwise you will have passes stopped or passes even “cut off,” and in good games “cut off” passes are apt to prove disastrous. Naturally the receiver can assist. If the carrier cannot manage it, the receiver may be able to slip across and give the passer the position he wants. The receiver must not expect the runner to do all the work; they must combine to get the best positional results.

One often sees a team on a goal line, making frantic efforts to score by mere weight and stupidity. You even see players getting the ball in their enemy’s twenty-five and kicking for touch, and not realising that if they get very near the goal line they are in a worse position. Where the line marking is good and the scrummaging is good there is a poor chance of “barging through,” the last desperate action of forwards deprived of their football wits.

Many years ago a captain would willingly allow his team to be pushed back a bit, for he knew that on their go.al line the defending side must take up a proper position, but that well in front of their goal line they may take up a wrong one.

Remember that when you get down in a twenty-five, you want to stay there. Hammering away in your opponent’s twenty-five is bad for the latter’s nerves. Don’t give them a chance to kick into touch; control the ball. If you see a movement won’t go, don’t take on some desperate venture and see the ball go back to your twenty-five, but go into someone with the ball and look for a new opportunity. If you go for openings in the middle of the field, and go

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ahead and don’t go across, you will multiply by a substantial integer the number of your opportunities. Don’t leave holes in your attack any more than in your defence. A ball that is travelling from one end of the ground to the other all day is not being played by footballers. If you read with attention the list of matches played in England in 1884, you will see how those great teams could control a football. How hard it was for the loser to score can be gleaned from the results.

In the restricted touch-line kicking game, a kick into a twenty-five should be kicked out in the other twenty-five, or near it. If Ryan and Warbrick were playing now they would kick it out in the other twenty-five every time. Therefore it should be a rule never to kick a ball unattended into your opponent’s twentv-five

If you have a good forward team don’t waste it by heeling out to poor backs. A really good pack of forwards can put up a great fight. The Dunedin Football Club of 1888 and 1889 was a good pack; I think as good a pack as ever played in Dunedin. J. Warbrick thought 1889 was the culminating year of football in New Zealand, as did George \\ ilhams, H. Wynyard and other great players. In t iat year the first seven-a-side tournament was played in Dunedin and was won by a team of seven forwards. One could hardly advance a more striking example of the decay of Rugby Football. Fancy seven forwards going out now-a-days to beat backs in a seven-a-side tournament. If your pack is good then play them up and down the middle ot the ground and keep your backs punting to the centre.

Always be on the look-out at free kicks and marks for the second string to your bow. You have a free kick near the touch line in your opponent’s quarters. If they carelessly cover the ground there may be a better chance of a try on the other side. A good team is always thinking especially at starting times. A player should be able to conclude that what he sees, others see and that if he puts the ball where the chance demands it, it will not

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neglected. All indication in such cases is poor; good players never advertise, or if they do you should be cautious how you read the advertisement.

DEFENCE

One of the great secrets of good defence is good line kicking; the ball in the air going fifty yards to the touch line, or towards your own forwards is a certainty; very few runs will get half the distance and there are always possible slips.

As a rule go up to defend and stand back to attack. We have spoken of combined tackling and have shown the importance of the triangle in defence and attack, when fast forwards leave the scrummage quickly and the half-back pounces round at once as the ball goes back; when care is taken that the half-back really parts with the ball, much has been done in the way of defence in movements from the scrummage. Anticipation is very important here. When shall we see again three or four men go down just having time to get rid of the ball owing to the rapid movements of the tacklers.

In the cross movements of the present day, if, say, the defending centre was to come at the second five-eighth just as the first five-eighth passed he wmuld surprise the second five-eighth with the ball nearly every time. The present policy is to wait and see, but in football the proper policy is to kill attack at its origin.

Drive back a five-eighth or running half-back a few feet and the movement is over, or in your favour, for it is in such circumstances that passes are often cut off.

Forwards should especially aim at getting to backs at once. Don t stand and look. One often sees three or four forwards surrounding a fast back. All stand and look at him as if each man thought his own collar must be decisive, and the back generally gets away. If one forward had gone at him directly he sighted him and occupied his attention and made him act, even if his tackle failed, the other forwards should succeed.

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Potting is coming back again—after an absence of thirty rears! What things happen when unwisdom sits in the seats of the mighty! I notice the human animal does not change. The tendency to watch and pray when an opponent is about to pot is the rule to-day. One must get over that habit. Try to get to the line of his kick at once. You have but to touch the ball. Go for the ball, not the man, or you may get the man and find the ball over the bar.

Keep your head; a wet day, a heavy ball, and two or three forwards charging you—don’t hurry! Get the ball and throw it to a support on right or left. In wet weather they will never get near him. If the ball is on the ground a small kick to the right place will get a bac.K out of many a difficulty as will ability to dribble. He must, however, keep his eyes open and see what he is about.

Passing for a kick to clear in one’s own twenty-five is dangerous for some teams, but good throwers, catchers and quick kickers can do what other people had best leave alone. I have pointed out the position a back team should try to assume when a forward pack is breaking towards them from a scrummage and in your twenty-five with short line out the defensive throw to your backs.

Don’t pay much attention to the cry: “Attack is the best defence.” Like many ether popular cries there is little in it. You will meet teams who will do all the attacking and you will have to defend. Nothing but defence will save you. How many attacking teams were wrecked by the great defensive teams that Wellington had playing in the early eighties?

QUALIFICATIONS FOR DIFFERENT POSITIONS FORWARDS.

If I were asked my idea of a forward, or rather the •class of man in which you will find a big proportion of your best forwards, I should say a man of sft. 7in. to sft. 10in., forty inches round the chest and twelve to twelve and a half stone.

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Get that man into real good form and he will be able to gallop all day and gallop at the finish. He is the sort of forward who can screw a game up tighter and tighter till the other side cracks. Everyone must notice the lack of powder in the last twenty minutes of most games now-a-days. In spite of the rests —the whistle blows every two minutes and every time a man is tackled there is a set scrummage—the forwards don’t last, and there are two main reasons: they are too big and they are not trained; they are merely rubbed and massaged.

The good forward should be able to do anything and everything. An old player, D, Torrance, recently said to me: “Once I could put my hand on any man in my pack and say, go back and play in such and such a position, and he could do it; but those days are gone.” Forwards should keep their bodies forward and their heads down a bit, so that you rather see the cranium than the face, hands at side; when they get the ball it should be on the waistline in a flash.

In the scrummage they should get down as I have described elsewhere, smoothly, not with a bump—learning to waltz well is of great assistance here. When off the ball they should get on it at once; all pushing off the ball is waste effort. They must not turn their tail on the scrum or buckle up in it. They must not turn broadside on—ask a sailor about that. They must not clutch the pants of their scrum mates, for it is very annoying, and when the ball goes out they must get out quick to where they are wanted. They must support the man at the ball; don't rush him! One man at a time is good football. They must not get off-side and must learn to start quickly and stop quickly. Where all are alert they should be the alertest.

They should cure themselves of the habit of standing and looking—learn to see what is on and get into the movement. They should follow up at top speed and support one another —the triangle. If one forward is at a back the other should block a possible dodge. If first at a fast back, and you are supported, try to turn him to your supports.

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If you jump and miss you may prevent your supports getting at him. Nothing stops backs like quick forwards who occupy them at once. Forwards charging a high kick should go for the ball, they should not run up to the catcher, watch him catch and then knock him down. If they can t quite reach the catcher they should collapse on him. There is not the slightest reason to hurt him, as people know who have done the business thousands of times when following up was really fast and not a jog-trot. You are not a train, there is no necessity to hurt the catcher. It is not sport and it is not tradesmanlike. Put yourself in the other fellow’s place.

If a defender is going back for a ball put on steam and get right up to him. You may dribble the ball out of his hands and at any rate as he stoops for the ball is the best time to tackle him. A favourite method is to stop five or ten yards away to investigate his dodging powers. It often proves a disheartening experiment. When attacking try to see what is on and get into position. Especially see that the carrier is backed up on both sides.

A is carrying and should go in direction of the arrow to get double backing up; if he does not, B should slip in on the unbacked side.

Learn to be quick and sudden in your movements, to keep down with a good hold of the ground and hit with shoulders hips and stern, and not with your stomach; it is far better to keep the ball there. Come into your work with a snap and always obey the voice that calls, for the man behind you sees what you see not. In the line out mark your man closely, go for the big man’s hips as he jumps and keep in close as a cow farmer would advise. Be

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always ready for a quick pass as soon as you receive the ball. How many goals has Downes potted thus? Never delay a pass where the opening is good, the door soon closes. Never use more force than is necessary, don't pitch your opponents about; don’t drag them or fall on them when they are on the ground. Above all keep on your feet as much as possible and learn to get up quickly when you go down. Near a goal line gather yourself in a ball and go for it, jump the last four or five feet and land on forearms with your chin, chest and both hands on the ball, and stay there till the referee awards a try. Don’t worry about the size of the other men; size is nothing. 16x6 = 96; 12 X 8 = 96. A sixteen stone man going six yards a second and a twelve stone man going eight yards a second hit the same blow. Much work in football has to be done in a yard or two. A middle weight can fly into it; a big man can only fall into it. The middle weight jumps up and into the big man who thus makes an excellent target.; the big man has to come down to his much poorer target. Rapidity and snap are what the little man beats the big man in. Let the light man use his talents.

The class of forward I am speaking of is the class of the great Welsh packs of long ago. Not great weight, but big chests, hearts, and lung room. The “big little men” that Keogh used to speak about with admiration.

FIVE-EIGHTHS

Five-eighths should be quick handlers, rapid drop kicks and punters, quick thinkers, should have weight if possible; a burst through is better than a bad pass, i.e., a pass that leads nowhere. They should weave on one another, change places, run opponents off, and jump into the gap as in figure:

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X and Z running at C and B. Z runs wide to keep B out; suddenly X (carrying the ball), goes to right and makes C go to right; an instant later Z suddenly turns and jumps into the gap between B and C when he receives from X.

Their relations with centre and half are very intimate. When these four men are very good and welded together, wings have a chance of not having much more than defensive work to do. The five-eighths are also frequently amongst their forwards and will often drop the ball there and let them dribble instead of being tackled with the ball and stopping the attack. In their position rapidity is of great importance; five yards in a flash. Keogh went as if out of a catapult.

HALF-BACKS

During the last thirty years Roberts of the 1905 team was easily the best half-back I have seen. The two halfbacks of the 1888 British team were 12 stone 12 pounds and 13 stone 5 pounds. Keogh, the best man I ever saw at the back of a scrum, was 12 stone; Roberts, I think, was three or four pounds more. On the other hand, J. B. Thomson was ten and a half stone, and was, I believe, better when he was under ten stone, and Roberts, of the 1884 team, was also a light man. I like a bit of weight in a half-back if possible.

His main business, if you are playing your backs, is to get the ball to them. When he signs for the ball his deep standing backs should be off at top speed; the faster the ball comes to him the harder he can throw and the faster

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he will make the play of the five-eighths and centre. You will never get fast play from the scrummage with twohanded passing. Therefore the half must learn to throw that ball till he can hit a postage stamp with it. He must not stand up to throw, but throw from where he squats and throw at the hips. His pass is good for all tnree backs and much beautiful play can be evolved here by using this flat, hard, low pass.

The ball is thrown deep to give room for development of play; depth depends on your own dexterity and that of your opponents. The line of the first five-eighth’s movement should be a good distance from the scrummage so as to avoid your opponent’s forwards, but the great point here is the pace of the ball.

The ball must not be thrown to the same man every time; keep the other side guessing. When close to opponent’s goal, if the centre falls back unobtrusively, a direct pass to him or an indirect one may result in a potted goal.

When the other side gets the ball go into it and catch the other half with it if you can. See that he parts with the ball. Someone else must look after him on the other side (best a forward), and both of you attend to nothing else till he has parted with the ball. The good half will pass and pass till the opposition gets careless; suddenly he feints and is over. Don’t be a dummy! What an excellent word it is!

Some years ago one of the great centres —I have noticed that good centres are, as a rule, graceful players—was induced by some young enthusiasts to go to see a game and convince himself that football was better than ever He saw a man run down the field and shake the ball at a man on the left, and then he shook it at another man on the right, and the old player, anxious for the information, asked, “Aren’t they allowed to tackle that man?” “Oh.” said his hosts, “He’s giving them the dummy.” “Ah!” said he, is that it.' My son, don’t be dummy enough; look at his hips, hit him with the right shoulder, take his ankle

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with the back arm and swing the other across to stop the pass and you will have him, ball and all.

Halves should always be ready for a return pass and have good opportunities of transferring play to the forwards breaking away on the opposite side of the scrummage and the wing of that side; a thrust down the centre with sudden attack on the drawn wing will win many tries. See to it that if the opposing forwards are getting away from the scrummage with the ball that your backs collaborate properly with you in defence. Especially when defending turn as you take the ball so that you have your back to the scrum. If you do it propel iy the punt over your head cannot be stopped.

THREE-QUARTER BACKS,

All ladders; two-footed kickers; strong runners. They should learn to run with body forward, taking a good hold of the grass so that if they hit anything they may not get the worst of it. They should hold the ban lightly in both hands and should practise transferring to the flank to free a hand to fend with. They should study in their passing to throw themselves automatically into receiver’s position again (great saving of time). Wings should not forget frequently to go inside the centre for the pass and should assist the centre to get into position to make a proper pass, i.e., allow him to get between the tackier and the receiver.

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Always be ready for an early infield pass. C gets the ball, at once throws to B, who makes for D and C goes up on wing. B’s run is holding up the defence; or C runs to D and B crosses his back and scores there the pass is more difficult).

These are both good ways of getting a try; the ordinary method of C running along the touch line is useless. The defence is streaming across at top as his objective is obvious and the in-pass to E at the last minute would be smothered.

This sudden turn in from the touch line when the defence is streaming across is a very effective movement even in the case of a solo run. It is astonishing how a good runner can thread his way through. In 1905 Colin Gilray got a beautiful try in an inter-provincial match at the Caledonion Ground. Playing towards Caversham he turned in from the grandstand touch line about the middle distance and slipped through to score between the posts.. His procedure at the time was regarded as very irregular by the critics.

Three-quarters should, as should all players, instruct one another. When you back up a man you are the eyes he should have in the back of his head. You can say “Go,” or you can call for a pass, but don’t let a fast man coming from behind jump on his back and flatten him out just in front of goal as I saw happen twice in a Payne Cup match; call for the pass and get the try.

If the centre is standing waiting to catch the ball and you can get it, call, and come up at top and off with him on your wing, or if you can’t quite get up, call as he catches and cross him and off he goes again on your wing. All saves time and gives you more room. Fractions of seconds win or lose matches. Look out for oblique movements, and for crossing men—they may leave the ball in your hands and you must be off like smoke on the opposite tack—a movement that is never made nowadays in attack or defence.

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AN ILLUSTRATION OF OBSTRUCTION.

In tackling go hard and low, and learn to slip round under your man on the goal line. Clever tackling on the line has saved many a try. Combine your tackling with that of the other backs, especially against dangerous runners. Don’t hang back, come up and tackle in combination, don’t be beaten in a string. If you see a runner has only one side to win on, block that side. Think of the triangle:—

Both these positions are hard for the runner to deal with.

Kick to your forwards as much as possible and don’t keep them racing across the ground while you are attempting impossibilities. Learn the controlled punt and on the day for the forwards see if you can keep three or four fast forwards racing up and down the middle of the ground by dropping the ball to them deftly and putting them on side neatly. It pays, believe me, has paid and will always pay. A really good pack of fast, lasting, hard-working forwards who can handle, dribble and tackle and know something of tactics, will worry the finest backs to death if they are served with the ball. But the modern theory seems to be that there is but one thing to do with a football, and that is to get it out of the scrummage and run away and bury it on the touchline.

Always run to keep back the defence from your proposed scoring point. Don’t be afraid to go close, but on the other hand don’t get amongst them so that they may block your passes. Failure here caused the big defeat of the 1908 English team at the Carisbrook. They had four very fast three-quarter backs, but not the slightest idea of how to use them. Once Vassall got away near his twentyfive and passed, I think, to Williams; the New Zealand team looked as if they were standing still as Williams went on to score. All day long the same chance was given. The New Zealand wing forward kept drop kicking the ball from

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the side of the scrummage obliquely to the further centre —generally Ponty Jones. Jones made off for the nearest touch line, gave it to the wing there who had no chance with the defence streaming across. If Ponty Jones had turned away from the scoring position and gone away to where the ball came from, with lots of room for Vassal, as he got the pass back from Jones, to score with the wing three-quarter as he had so easily done in the case of the one opportunity offered. The great victory was put down to the New Zealand forwards by the critics—the critics always say that. It was won by Roberts, Hunter and Stead, and as long as these players, and Mynott, played football they were the great strength of New Zealand teams.

When the teams met in Wellington I think Roberts did not play—as great a loss as they could sustain, for he was a very fine, strong half-back, cool and capable, but it was also wet, and the match was drawn, 3 points each.

Again, in Auckland, with Roberts playing, and a dry ground, New Zealand scored heavily, the explanation being that quick, snappy players like a good foothold and a dry ball to develop their game. A fast man will do well in the mud, may do very well; as in the case of Arthur Morris, one of the fastest forwards the game has seen and at his very best in the wet, but it is a bad element for the quick starter, so keep your corner clear by moving at the defence and not away from it. Angled running and sudden transference will do the rest.

In his own twenty-five the wing three-quarter will kick a lot and will kick to his forwards and into touch. Practise long kicking so that you can go from one twenty-five to the other like the accurate long kickers of the past Ryan, Warbrick, Alladyce, Teddie Francis, Jack Thomson.

FULL-BACK.

Not too tall, good twelve stone, fastest man in the team if possible: sure in the air, gets the ball in the air; solid tackier and rush stopper. He needs to be an equable, wise

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sort of person; must be able to kick well and quickly and have no left foot. When his opponents have the wind, he must get well in its eye if a cross wind, and must not find himself racing for a ball which the wind is blowing into the twetnty-five on the other side of the ground. With the wind he comes up closer, against it he keeps well back. Going back and catching a ball going away with the wind is difficult, going back to catch one kicked against the wind is easy. Of fundamental importance is getting in his kick, and his kick over his forwards into touch. In tackling he will find it useful to move to one side before the runner dodges. Ninety-nine runners out of a hundred will go away to the opposite side and you are into them before they can turn again. A well known Otago back who tried this manoeuvre some years ago said he didn’t seem to be going after the runners but they seemed to run into him. When fast forwards really come back again to assist backs this will be quite a good manoeuvre, the runner being turned to the forwards who get him from behind.

When you follow up your kick start your forwards off and get back, don’t as a rule go right through to the man yourself—call to your forwards when you put them on side, loud enough for the referee to hear. If he fails to notice that you are putting your forwards on side, draw his attention to it politely. Try to combine with your threequarter backs, especially your wings, in collaring. I have mentioned how Lynch and Thomas dealt with Stoddart. If you are fast and can take the ball well, in youi opponent’s half of the ground you will have many chances of sending your backs away. Don’t go too far, however, when playing against good teams and don’t finish up with a risky pass. If it is cut off it generally means a try.

You will also have chances of potting goals, the best way to score points.

Some people can stop rushes, some can’t. The former make up their mind quickly, seize the apparently right moment and go in hard; snap up the ball and go side on so as to give their opponents a chance of slipping off them.

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If you get the ball and are half-tackled make a sudden wrench to free yourself, but don’t struggle. If you have to flop on the ball, flop! But don’t drop on your knees and reach for the ball, you will miss it, and don’t run to the ball and stoop down in a stationary position with straight knees, because you won’t get the ball and you will be knocked heels over head. If the ball is held drop it at once and get up quick; if you are fast it is not all over yet. If two players are coming at you, you should be lost. If you are fast, however, you may work mem into a cross movement and get between them and then your chance is quite good—one of the cases where pace is of great importance to a full-back.

Sometimes you will have a chance to do something better. I once saw two players going at W. J. Warbrick. Warbrick was not a fast runner, but he was a great fullback. The backer up was a bit fine and suddenly Warbrick rushed the carrier. This unexpected happening was too much for the carrier and he faltered, he got the ball away to his support, but, alas! by that time the support was off-side and he had to throw forward. When I speak of getting under players in tackling on the line I am especially thinking of that great full-back. What a lion he was on the goal line, what stopping powers he had! Warbrick was a very powerful man in the legs. Though he weighed but a few pounds over twelve stone he had a seventeen inch calf.

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CHAPTER 111.

REFLECTIONS. THE SCRUMMAGE AGAIN—AND WHAT COMES OF IT.

Leaving out of consideration the fact that a clever team of forwards may seldom get the ball in the scrummage and yet win games by big margins, as was demonstrated by the Otago University teams of 1905-6-7; leaving out of account that good defence will hold up unlimited quantities of badly thought out attack, let us for a moment consider the scrummage. In 1881 the scrummage was a two front scrummage and as far as I know, that has always been the New Zealand formation, and was the English formation in its palmy days. The fundamental idea was a wedge and its function was to push; getting low was found very important, seeing the ball, jumping into the collar, rapid packing, rapid breaking up. Weight and pushing power are not the same thing; a good eleven stone man will easily hold a fourteen stone man if he can get underneath him. Pushing power depends also on condition, and football condition cannot be attained except by hard work —coaching, electricity, massage, will prove weak reeds to lean on.

About the time when the game went to pieces, 1893 or 1894, the forwards were first tied up in the scrummage and were being gradually taught to become “working bullocks,” whose duty it was to get the ball out to the artists, and hooking was successful with strong packs against weak, unthinking opposition. It was forgotten that real scrummage success was dependent on solid, intelligent pushing. Forwards began to stand with nearly straight knees in the scrummage, a position in which you cannot push, and hooked in scrummages which were mainly stationary. In the old days the side beaten in the push went back and the ball went to the opposing pack which dealt with it according to their wishes. It was not heeled

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out as a matter of course. Screwing is a very rapid operation with unlocked forwards, with locked forwards it is a very slow motion picture.

Against this two front scrummage a three front scrummage is formed. The obvious thing for the captain of a two front scrummage to do is to give up hooking and go in and push, and bring in his own wing-forward to push too. Now the other side will have no chance of hooking if your front rankers have their heads between their legs and they must come down to meet your push as well as they can; getting low in a scrummage is very important Hooking when you arc doubled up and pushing is impossible, and if it were possible any attempt to hook would be fatal, for the first side that lifted a hoof would be gone when the strain was relaxed. That was the old maxim and tug-of-war people will tell you that there is no doubt about its truth.

Now the three-front scrummage will find itself at a great disadvantage because it is not designed for pushing. Ine pushers can always beat the hookers, bu* the hookers ISSoTaon nf push 4 rs 'u l n the latter half of the decade 1880-1890, the Otago High School forward team showed what proper pushing can do against heavier packs. Nowadays working in the scrum is quite given up. A few years ago a forward in the Pirates team, Jackman, a man who did work (a back view of him would tell you that) seemed to be able to push the pack all over the field. When he went into a scummage the dead bones became alive again What should have been done in South Africa, I hope is clear enough, but captains no longer think. There are no Dixons nowadays with something well practised up their sleeves, to be produced if necessary. In all these discussions concerning the scrummage, the scrum is regarded as the whole business. Whereas loose moving fast forwards who can throw, dribble and tackle and see positions, won’t be nonplussed if they fail to get the ball in the scrum. The number of set scrums nowadays is due to weak refereeing.

Our bad ideas of scrummaging have been the source of all our trouble. I have never been able to find out who was

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the ingenious gentleman responsible for the conversion of a pack of free forwards into a chain gang. Forty years ago if you caught hold of a man in a scrummage he would scream at you. and yet those old scrums of long ago were compact, solid affairs, very different from the ramshackle structures one sees nowadays, where half the team pushes without knowing where the ball is.

The backs having wired up the forwards and impressed on them that they have one duty, to give the backs the ball, are going to have a good time against the weak opposition in front of them, and the half-back will be able to leave the back of the scrum and run a little because he has no loose forwards to remind him of the danger, and at once across-the-field running develops.

The forward soon became regarded as a block just fit to put his silly head down and scuffle with the ball till it came out somewhere. One often reads this sort of thing: “The forwards are the working bullocks, the backs are the artists.” After a while it seemed good to cut down the number of working bullocks and increase the artists by one, which was done; and now we play eight backs instead of seven, but we call one them a wing-forward, hoping that this name will permit to this back a fair amount of foul play not permissible to the other uncamouflaged ones. Now you have the definite New Zealand position, which once seemed as if it would outlast the everlasting hills: seven working bullocks, seven backs, and one hybrid, who, it is hoped, will go far.

Finally the forwards lose all their powers, so that if they do get a mark, you take the kick out of the hands of the working bullock and give it to an artist. Kven amongst the artists there are a good many poor kicks. .When this rule was altered again and the marker was forced to kick the ball himself, was there ever a spectacle equal to that which a forward offered in the first test match against South Africa in 1921, when he, after much preparation, made a right angle of defect in his kick. The artists, however, had their eyes open, and saw to it that no harm came to republic by such foolish latitude. Forwards who couldn’t dribble, couldn’t catch, couldn’t throw, and in the open had not the slightest idea what to do, but one idea in the scrum, to get the ball to such artists as the gods had

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given them, and see what they could do with it- Is it any wonder that they revenge themselves for the tedium of their lives by assaulting anyone they can lay hands on? Think of the dozens of big heavy forwards of the last thirty years Did anyone ever see them do anything that had intelligence mit The phrase barging through” describes them comP etely, for the word “barge” has some meaning of quarrelling in it. M C 1

As for the artists, they have, in the main, a game bv arrangement. When you get the ball the opposing artist chases you a certain distance, threatens you in a gentlemanly manner, and you at once pass on your bucket of water to your successor. This procedure will be continued as tar as the touch-line, unless it so happens that the wing can get between Scylla and Charybdis, in which case the attack will score a try. As the try is the rarity the poor uncomplaining hodmen" have nothing for it but to cross the paddock and get ready for the return journey. Poor suffenng forwards, what a sour life these artists have led you If one of the artists goes straight, i.e., “cuts in,” his assistant artists hold up their hands i* holy horror, and say that he ran away from them. They might, with equal propriety, say that they stayed away from him; and yet they have this excuse. The opposing artists, disgruntled by this breach of good manners, just witnessed, would not fail to wreak their just wrath on any parties to such innovation by blocking them or knocking them down, to record their detestation of their criminal attempt at participation.

Referees say they never see these things. They are watching the bullocks. They say it is in the scrums, and in the breaking-up of scrums that the artist ridden “working bullocks solace their hearts with a little relief from the monotony of their life. The artists miss a good many passes, and plain, high catches have a way of slipping through their fingers. Their passing is futile pitching, their tackling is feeble, and they have nothing in common in their views of their art. In fact an enemy or a plain outspoken man might call them “sham artists.” However the worse things get the nearer one is to the worst, and if life lasts, then one may confidently expect improvement. The first improvement to be noticed, and it comes in the right order, is a dim partial view of the importance of ball con-

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Dribbling has not come yet, but the old kicking forward, who has ruled the roost for thirty years, is going, the result being that forwards are beginning to get a glimpse of the ball outside of the scrummage, where, indeed, manv of them do not see it. As a result they will slowly get hands again; teet again. Combination will come, smoothness will come and we will regard with horror the days of the “clashes”-’ ..shock tactics” is journalese for it. “Shock tactics” means no tactics.” Students interested in the matter are referred to "Journalistic Ethics.”

When the forwards cease to “put in the boot,” unless a merciful captain on Saints’ Days and the like calls out, Don t kick him,” and come again to have some share in the game with the artists, the latter may come to regard the metamorphosis of their old friend the “working bullock” with equanimity; though, perhaps, when they have been converted into real artists by the “working bullocks,” freed from their chains, they may still remain blind to the cause of it all.

Nothing makes backs like fast, loose forwards coming from the scrummage, and the dribbling pack. So hope is springing again. The darkest hour precedes the dawn, and the dawn will be all the brighter for the night has been very dark and long. Here opportunely an excerpt from the Otago Daily Times/’ September 27th, 1928 re New Zealand Football in South Africa:—“ Dr. Sinclair sums up his article by stating that ‘shiners are not wanted in the scrum. Full-back’ has reiterated this point time and again tor years past. Let me put the system as ‘Steve’ Casey, the 1905 All Black, puts it, and as his team plavcd it away back in 1905: The forwards are the labourers, the wing-forward the skilled labourer, and the backs the tradesmen. Presumably, however, the New Zealand selectors do not want any labourers. They want fifteen tradesmen.”

This merely shows how ingrained the idea is that a hard worker in the scrummage can’t be brilliant in the open. Many of the most brilliant of New Zealand forwards were very hard workers. They were always on the ball, and they had opportunities of throwing, catching, dribbling, tackling and manoeuvring. The idea of a brilliant forward nowadays is one who makes one or two wild rushes up the

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middle of the ground, loses control of the ball, snatches at someone’s head and neck, misses, and comes back solaced by the cries of “hard luck, Joe!”

The big educated forwards of the 1884 team had rough enough predecessors.

New Zealand Rugby Union Annual, 1885:

Page 32; Ancient Canterbury Football:

“In 1882 Otago introduced the fast modern style of play and vanquished Canterbury by five goals and three tries to one.”

Past Season in Canterbury, pp. 32-33:

“Our footballers now see the stupidity of the old tight scrummaging game, and realise that something more than brute strength and a hard skull is required to make a man a good player. . . . The passing of our backs, which has always been the weakest point in their play, has greatly improved, and they now see the advantage that occurs by kicking the ball down the ground into touch, instead of vainly endeavouring to struggle through their adversaries. The forward play of Canterbury has always been good, but . . . One of the results of the fast game is that more collaring falls to the lot of the forwards than was hitherto the case.”

North Canterbury Club:

“The characteristic of this club has been for years the great weight of its players. They are the heaviest team in Canterbury. Their weight was advantageous to them in the old scrummaging game. They paid little attention to back play, trusting entirely to their forwards, but during the season before last (i.e., 1883), when the fast game was adopted by other clubs, they found that their weight and strength was no match for the scientific play of their adversaries, etc.”

Wellington Football, page 40:

“Wellington Football may be said to have received its first impetus from the visits of Canterbury and Otago teams in 1876 and 1877. In previous years, although matches had been played with Auckland, Nelson and

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Wanganui, no teams capable of teaching Wellington players more of the game than they already knew had been met, and as a consequence the play was individual and not combined in its nature. Very heavy teams, fierce bullocking, rough and tumble all round play has been the rule.”

But it grows wearisome. Rugby football began to get out of the swamp about fifty years ago, and began to move freely, but only for a short period. Near forty years ago it went back into the swamp, and has been there ever since.

FOUL PLAY.

Foul play had short shrift forty years ago. It was not popular. In "Hints to Players,” Rugby Football Annual, 1885, p. 93, we find:—

Talking and squabbling on the field only brings the game into discredit.

Picking up in a scrummage is grossly unfair, and off-side play is contemptible.

Players should make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the rules of the game.

Footballers must hang together if they desire the game to improve, and should never forget the following advice;

Let’s stick in beginning

To the rules of the game;

Whether losing or winning

Fair play and no malice

Will keep the ball spinning.

Compare with this the following excerpt from a more recent newspaper report; —

“Dunedin Evening Star,” September 10th, 1928

“A SPORTING GAME”—VISITORS UNLUCKY TO LOSE MALCOLM’S TRIBUTE TO Cl IFE PORTER.

Most of the speakers at the dinner tendered at the City Hotel to the New South Wales and New Zealand teams after the second test, made it clear that they thought the

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better team had lost on the day, though no complaints came from the visitors on that score. It was a typical gathering of sportsmen, who all seemed to think more of the fact that the game had been played in a sporting spirit than of the result.

Mr. Cliff Porter, the captain of the New Zealand team proposed “The New South Wales Team,” and referred to the fact that the game had been played in a true sporting spirit. “We appreciate your sporting spirit, and the hard games you have given us,” he said. The speaker went on to congratulate the \Varatahs on their very fine record on their tour of Great Britain.

In reply, Mr. S. J. Malcolm, the skipper of the visitors, referred to the splendid time which the people of New Zealand had given the team. He congratulated Mr. Porter and his team on their win. He was very pleased with the performance of his team, because the people of New South Wales did not think it would do nearly as well as it had done. It was only by co-operation that they had done so well. The game was played in a fine sporting spirit, and it was a great thing for him, when he was down in the ruck once, to hear Cliff Porter say: “Don’t kick him.” Personally the speaker did not care who won as long as the game was clean, and played in that spirit.”

Unfortunately New Zealand football has quite a wide reputation for foul play, and it is unfortunate that it is so. If you discuss football with old players you will find it a general rule that players up to the early ’nineties talk “football,” after that period they talk “fouling.” Some frontrankers’ whole experience seems to be a reptition of “what a beauty I gave so and so,” “how I threw up my head and knocked so and so’s teeth out.” How, in his first interprovincial match a “man of mark” hit me in the jaw in the first scrummage, how I got advice and was told to punch him, and I did it, and how he turned it up and we swore brothers.” “How such and such a great coach gave me the tip: If a man falls at your feet on the ball, come down hard on him with your knees and stove his ribs in.” The clever

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trick of standing on a man’s foot as he goes to jump for the ball in a line-out; holding men on the ground to get a free kick from a foolish referee; holding a man back by his jersey, blocking, tripping, shepherding, punching, yea, even biting—“teeth marks have been identified.” This is all taught with “bung in it,” and “put in the boot” is the whole tale of a great deal of football instruction. Before the war many teams in Dunedin had their champion foul player. The Rugby Union was sure to select him for the interprovincial games; and one has often heard the remark that the man who was hooted when played for his club, was cheered when playing for his province. Kicking men on the ground; good forwards don’t kick, and can run over a man stopping a rush without hurting him. When charging down a kick there is no necessity to hurt the man. It is the desire to hurt that is at the bottom of it all; charging into a player with your knee up to hit him in the belly was a favourite trick for some years. One of the best players of the last thirty years was permanently injured that way. Throwing your arm around a man’s neck and falling backwards with him, “savaging” men who have not the ball if they are suspected of being in a position to do something, line-out fouling are always going on. The photographs facing pages 48, 80 and 96 show that these evils are prevalent even in international football.

These things, and many others, are proofs of the low state of ethics of our football, and the weakness of our referees. Simple people who have never played football put it down to excitement. I have never met these excited players. Spectators do find football exciting, but the players do not get excited; that is, if they are any good.

A player who is right on a man catching a ball need not hurt him if he is playing the ball. If he misses getting there, he need not hurt the man. Don’t listen to all this rubbish about “trains pulling up.” People who have done it thousands of times know how you can collapse on a man. It is the will to hurt that is at the back of it all. Twenty-five years ago, when I was coaching, I heard a good deal of

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fooball talk. A piece of advice which then had a great vogue was: "After you have passed the ball go into the man opposite you and knock him out of the movement. Apart from the "yellow dog" side of this advice readers have seen that this is the one thing you ought to avoid, for you are, I hope, going much faster than he is, and you are not putting him out but putting yourself out.

pulling mm wui •-'m j What we want are referees and Rugby Unions who will do away with all this. The game seldom proceeds three minutes without the whistle blowing. Most of the players have but a shadowy knowledge of the rules, perhaps in some instances they fear that correct knowledge would hardly serve their turn. Giving away free kicks is so frequent that no one pays any attention to such breaches. Fancy a New Zealand captain of bygone years going to Australia and giving away nine points in the first twenty-five minutes as his contribution to the game. He would have retired to a coal hole. Certainly he would never have captained another New Zealand team. It is a terrible charge against the game, that in the case of severe injuries it frequently happens that no one knows how they occurred. All spectators of games have seen a player, after some piece of dirty play, hiding himself amongst his fellows. Does a game played like that do anyone any good?

POSSIBILITIES IN RUGBY FOOTBALL,

Every time you gain possession of the hall you could score if your team was deft enough. How often we see a team leave the field where three or four of the backs have had little to do, and the others more than their share. Surely here are times when the fresh ones would have done better.

How often do you see a player overpower his vis-a-vis from the beginning to the end of the game? Surely one might have expected the captain to think harder. Suppose you got hold of fifteen men: 12-12 i stone (don’t keep out the 9 stone man if clever enough, or the 16 stone man if he can keep up with the game that will be played); forty inches in

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chest measurement, which is much more important than weight. Teach these men in a puntabout to do all the things required of a footballer, and do them well. The men must have football intelligence; without that you will get no real combination.

The play starts: Your right wing can’t quite manage the man in front of him—you put another there, and keep replacing till you get a man that can stand over him. If he is too good for any of your team you have made his game much harder by this procedure. Your centre has a hard 20 minutes, he goes full-back, your forwards become backs and your backs forwards. Jones of the opposite side can’t say I am marking Brown,” the man opposite him is changing. In the end Jones does not know whom he is marking. Suppose even a moderate amount of this were done, what a difference it would make to the attacking side. The man they fear most always appearing in new places. Besides meeting their strength you can attack their weakness.

Fancy bringing in a fresh team of forwards in the closing minutes of a hard game; what an advantage over a team less elastic! How many days there are when an extra forward would be valuable, much more so than the same man back!

Think of the combination you would get where men were conscious of the difficulties of all positions because they had played there, consider how beautifully they would place one another, how they could rely on one another, think how teachable they would become. What a team they would weld into. The English Team of 1888 was further advanced in this direction than any New Zealand team, but the New Zealand team of 1884 had also given good evidence of this development.

CAPTAINCY.

The idea of the Captain has disappeared. He disappears after the preliminary evolutions, the fashion in which seems to be controlled by the “Movies.”

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A New Zealand captain by breaches of the rules gives away nine points in the first twenty-five minutes of a game in Australia. Against what forward taken “in delicto flagrante” could he cast his opprobious stone? Captaincy is for him impossible. The old captains did not break the rules. They wished to win by observing the rules. The old feeling was expressed by the two passages in “Hints to Players” (See p. 107).

A Captain should pick his team and be responsible for it. He should control the play of his team and see that he is strictly obeyed. He should assist the referee in punishing delinquents and should not shield them. In this way he will produce a team worthy of the name.

It is the Captain s business to find out the weakness of the other team and attack it with his strength. On a wet day to say to his backs “to-day you will play to your forwards,” and they should know what he wants, and do it.

He tosses, and is well advised always to take the advantage, unless it is offset as by a setting sun. Playing against a wind he should try to manage to get through with as little effort as possible, unless he has a team of the tireless sort—not seen nowadays. Teams that play against a heavy wind generally lose, and they lose often because they have no capacity for thought. They try to open up the game and give their opponents all sorts of opportunities, heavy scoring takes place against them, and yet they are playing hard. With a big score against them they are done to a frazzle in the second spell and instead of catching up drop further back. A captain would see that his team did not do that, but that they waited till the elements were in their favour and gave the other side as few chances as possible, by being very careful about ball control.

Captains should scan with care the account of the match against Bathurst played by the 1884 team. There they will read of a New Zealand team captained by a man who knew his business, supported by a team that had similar knowledge.

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Teams often play on the wrong touch line. The twohanded passing often forces them to do this; they go in the direction of the least resistance. Very often this inability makes them play against the stronger three-quarter of the opposing side. A game is easily lost in that way. The wind is not taken advantage of (I speak of an oblique wind). Captains must eliminate as much as possible those errors which have been mentioned, and point out to players in what respect improvement is necessary.

If your team is not a rapidly improving one you are no great shakes as a captain. Make your team practise movements and in matches against weaker teams try to put them into operation—much better employment of your time than scoring forty or fifty points. In selecting your team remember that defence comes first. Your fast runner, who generally can do nothing else, may get many tries against weak teams, but judge him on his performance against strong teams and you will find that he has to go. Solid defence goes a long way in football. Bring down a man two or three times, and in the great majority of cases you will bring him down every time. Don’t allow any foul play to be taught your team, and be human in cunning, not vulpine, e.g., don’t be in a great hurry when the score is against you and very lethargic when you are up. Men don’t play games like that. Set an example by playing the game yourself, and you will soon find a team that will be a pleasure and a credit to you.

I remember once playing in a match in 1888 against a team skippered by a great New Zealand forward. The referee was J. Wyinks, and a great referee he was. From a passing rush J. H. Stephenson got a try in the corner, but as he went down the opposing half-back came across, tackled Jack Stephenson, and knocked djrvvn the touch-in-goal flag. The Captain of the defending side saw the try, and as he went by Wyinks said, “It was a try all right, Wyinks.” The try was given us, though I am certain that the referee would not have given the try unless the captain had spoken. Try to imitate that great player, try to get

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that spirit back into New Zealand football, and you will certainly be of great service to the game.

CONTROL OF THE GAME.

About twenty-five years ago, when the Referees’ Association was being formed in Dunedin, I pointed out to the Otago Rugby Football Union that the control of the game would be finally handed over to the referees, and I think my fears have proved warranted.

A referee is there to administer the prescribed Laws of the Game. If he has any whims of his own a strong Otago Rugby Football Union would inform him that he would either have to give them up or stop refereeing. It would have been much better if the Otago Rugby Football Union had handed over the financial side to a firm of accountants and attended to this, their main business. We find scattered through the Otago Rugby Football Union Annual the letters N.Z.R.A. These references should be all obliterated and we should stick to the laws of the English Rugby Union as we profess to do. Altering rules is a ticklish job, and the Referees’ Association has shown no capacity to deal with the matter. They rush in without thinking, and are fond of poor definitions.

Take, for instance, the 1924 Annual, p. 114;

“A player shall be considered as being on the ground when not wholly supported by his feet.” —N.Z.R.A.

A player is then on the ground when he runs, for his feet are never on the ground together. A player jumping for the ball is on the ground- A player with bent knees going down to smother a hard kick coming through the mud often puts his hands on the ground, and is he then “on the ground”? A half-back making a pass from scrummage often puts his hands on the ground, and must also be considered to be "on the ground.”

Again, page 113:

"A kicker who in kicking for a goal inadvertently kicks the ball out of the placer’s hands before the latter

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has placed it on the ground should be allowed to have another kick.”—X.Z.R.A.

This is a very astonishing decision: “inadvertently” is camouflage; “inadvertently” means: that the kicker and the placer muddled the place kick and broke a law: viz., that the ball must be kicked off the ground. If after the ball is on the ground the kicker handles it he breaks a law but does not get another kick. The confusion is with the word “must.” The ball must be thrown out straight, but if you fail to throw it out straight, you get no second chance. A muddle like this decision is clear enough evidence for the necessity of doing away with such interference with the Laws of the Game.

Then there is the mare’s nest re the wing-forward, all due to misconception. With good refereeing the wingforward would give it up and go into the scrummage. There are no special laws for backs or forwards. There is a law for the scrummage and a law for the open. If you are a full-back and find yourself in a scrummage you must obey the laws of the scrummage, and if you are a forward you must obey the laws of the open when you are in the open.

New Zealand wing-forwards are off side all the time and are obstructing all the time, and manage to exist through the laxity of the referees and the slow passage of the ball to the half-back. Pat Keogh would have laughed at them.

Again on page 111:

A player when off-side can intercept a pass from an opposing player, but he can only make a mark for a fair catch if the pass intercepted is a forward one. On page 110 it says; “An off-side player shall not play the ball, etc.” Here we are told he can under certain conditions. The real fact is that the player is not “off-side” at all, directly the pass was made he was placed on-side under third section of the Act, page 109. An off-side player is placed on-side when the ball has been kicked by or has touched an opponent.

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THE ADVANTAGE RULE.

Twenty-five years ago, and for long after, it was not uncommon to see the ball come back for some infringement that had taken place two or three minutes before. The precise point at which this decision was made depended on the judgment of the referee. I have never seen a try gained by the wrong side during the interval of pondering, and the ponderer would require great strength of mind or have a firm belief in the gullibility of the human race if he refused the try and scrummaged at the seat of the earlier crime which led to all the bother. Here is a chance for a rising referee to win fame.

Now the first rule for a referee is to blow his whistle immediately an infringement takes place. But when the non-offending side gain an advantage he must not blow his whistle. What does “advantage” mean? It all centres on that. I knock a ball on in the line ou,. It goes to an opposing back in front of my goal, he can mark it or pot a goal. The whistle does not blow and he pots a goal. The whistle does not blow and he misses the pot or muddles the catch, why should the whistle blow now? He had his chance and missed it, why should I not be allowed to avail myself of his muddle? Why can’t Igo after the ball he has mulled? Am I to be punished twice? To take advantage of an advantage always requires some dexterity and if that dexterity is lacking why should the “inferiority complex” get another chance?

Unless the two rules are to ultimately fall into contradiction the solution is this: “Advantage” means “opportunity”—the referee can judge that at once if he knows his business, and the whistle blows or does not blow according as to whether the opportunity is there or notWhat is made out of the opportunity is no concern of the referee, just as when he orders a free kick you have an opportunity to kick a goal. If you fail that is your business.

The off-side rule, pp. 109-110:

“An off-side player shall not play the ball, nor actively nor passively obstruct, nor approach nor

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wilfully remain within ten yards of an opponent waiting for the ball.”

Now, the common mistake of referees is that they have no conception of what five yards means, viz., about three or four steps vadying with the rate of movement of the player. When standing outside the ten yard limit, players are onside as long as they do not disobey the law of obstruction, though the player makes towards them. Most referees think five yards is about twenty. It would be better if the laws were stated in steps as in the Australian game.

The second mistake consists in paying no attention to the word wilfully. Suppose a player onside plays the ball on to an opponent and the ball goes back to a team mate who is behind him and comes back again to his opponent, though he may be three yards from the opponent he is not “wilfully” there; he can’t avoid being there. He has to break another rule before he can be accounted offside. If the opponent mulls the ball he can go at him because he is not inside the ten yard limit in the meaning of the rule, and is placed onside immediately the ball is touched by his opponent.

THE MARK.

Page 103:

A fair catch can only be claimed by the catcher making his mark after he has caught the ball; the mark must be made as soon after the ball is caught as possible. Referees might allow a claim when the mark was simultaneously made with the catching, etc.

Note ; A fair catch must be a clean catch at the first attempt. (N.Z.R.A.)

One would think that all was quite clear, but who ever sees a mark made correctly. Marks are given after second attempts. Catches: any catch in the air is given as a mark, though the player is tackled before he gets down. If he is charged down and falls on his back he is given a mark.

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We have screeds in the newspapers from referees on the subject; nothing could be more at variance than their talk and their practice.

EXTRA FOOTBALLS.

To speed up the game we must have extra footballs in defiance of the rules. I have indicated the proper way to speed up the game. Before the day of the “ball boy,” teams, if they wanted to get the ball to the line quickly, had to do it themselves, and that was the fair way. As it is, a ball boy could win a match. This year, in the match against Australia, there was trouble over it. New Zealand generally seems to have no idea of the importance of laws like those of the Medes and Persians, laws which are altered for good and sufficient reasons alone.

REFEREEING

At the present day refereeing is very bad. For many years we have had but one good referee in Dunedin, and he naturally has not been a “persona grata.” Referees from abroad have not made me think the position in Dunedin is exceptional.

What I thought was the worst refereeing I ever saw was in the first international match, South Africa v. New Zealand, in 1921. Mr. W. G. Garrard in a letter to the “Otago Daily Times” drew attention to the systematic favouring of the New Zealand Team by the referee, but no notice was taken of that letter by the Rugby Union. It was a pity, for the illustration and the letter press show that the same referee was very good to the Auckland team in their match against the Springboks.

Yet almost a worse exhibition was seen this year in the second match Australia v. New Zealand, played in Dunedin. New Zealand got two tries it was not entitled to, and if it had not been for the line umpire there would have been three; whilst Australia got at least two perfectly fair tries that were not awarded to them. New Zealand refereeing has got a bad name in the world, and in my opinion thoroughly deserves it.

The referee should have played the game in good company and should know the rules as they are there learned. A referee who is always thinking of the book will never learn to referee

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well. The good referee is pretty well automatic in his control. The referee must be a man who does not bet, and should be free from club, provincial and national prejudice, and the crowd must not exist for him. He must take charge of the game and command absolute rapid obedience. He will have to demonstrate occasionally that he means business. He can give free kicks, tries, order men off the ground. He has full powers, let him use them, but not in a spasmodic manner. Having sent one man off the ground, don’t let his heart fail him but let the second go too, if he deserves it. There is no occasion for him becoming a label on a parcel carried by somebody else as too many referees are. There should be no “supermen” for him. All our provinces have had players at times who did what they pleased with the referees. When such players go abroad they are liable to surprises.

The referee should not keep a running account of the game. Having made a mistake he should forget about it. Having by mistake given a free kick and a goal being kicked, he should not let a forward pass go, for if a try is gained and goaled by the other side he has again a debit to settle. Such referees (and their name is legion) spoil games and are quite unfit for their positions. It is a pity that referees are not picked by the captains as in the old days; at present they have no natural enemies and have gone to seed.

The positions taken up by the referee will vary from time to time, but generally he will keep away from the game and take the mid-field. The touch judges are looking after the lines. Let him always aim at a wide view. At kick-off and kick-out let him take up a position where he can see the whole team, so that half the team are not off-side behind his back. By keeping away from the game he does not obstruct it. For many years referees used to have their noses in the scrummage and saw nothing. At that time it was thought that being in good trim and getting amongst the five-eighths was the hall mark of a good referee. These referees were merely nuisances; they were always in the way and saw nothing. Watch the player after he gets rid of the ball. Nowadays most of them obstruct; it is the

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regular thing. Sometimes the ball gets away from you; learn to judge a forward pass by the movement of the players in front.

Stop all sacks on the mill: Free-kick a late arrival or two on the heap, and by and bye you will be able to go deeper with your free kicks. In the end there will be one man on the ground and another standing over him ready to play the ball as he parts with it, the proper state of affairs, the state of affairs forty years ago when the old “molly coddles” were playing. If a player starts dragging a man after the ball is held, free kick against him. If a man is lying on a man who has the ball and does not get up like a flash, penalise him for holding the other man down. If he does get up promptly and the other player does not part with the ball, penalise the latter.

If a player when tackled and the ball held struggles io get away, penalise him and not the man who hangs on. A Dunedin team lost a match this year by such a foolish decision. Let your rule be: “The last man down is the first man up.” See how you will smarten up the game and how the forwards will learn to keep on their feet again.

Don’t blow the whistle for a mark till it is made; send late chargers off the ground. That is the way to protect the players. If a man plays the ball there is no late charging. This whistleblowing for attempted marks is very unfair to the charging side. Watch three things especially:

1. A ball is thrown by the wing-forward or half-back to a five-eighth, the catch is mulled and the thrower goes back and plays the ball; he is off-side but this off-side is seldom noticed by referees.

2. A full-back fails to field a hall and falls down; a wingthreequarter who is standing in front orf him comes across and plays the ball. This infringement is seldom noted though the penalty should often be a try, for when the full-back after touching the ball, falls down, there is no one to put his team on-side.

3. That players are offside in relation to their own players and not in their relation to opponents: a player follows up a kick, is jinked by the catcher who runs up the

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ground followed by the charging player. The runner kicks and the wind blows the ball back over his head towards his own goal. The charging player nearer the goal of the kicker catches the ball and runs in for a try. This charging player has never been offside, though many referees would judge him to be so. He would not be in the play if it has not been for the bad kicking of his opponent. The Laws of Rugby Football, when properly administered, do not protect a player from the result of his mistakes.

Pay attention to the word “wilfully” in the rules; it will help you. Realise that all men outside the scrummage must obey the laws of the open and paralyse that hybrid, the wing-forward, and put him where he belongs. Watch obstruction: You will have lots of it at first, but in the end the players will walk about you as carefully as if you were a swamp. Keep your eyes open for pots; learn to watch the bar and see whether the dropping ball obscures the bar or vice versa; in the first case no goal; in the second case, a goal.

In kicks at goals if in doubt consult both the linesmen if they are at their posts, not one only. Don’t ask them at all if you are sure. Blow your whistle firmly, one blast. See that it is a good one. Carry a spare one or have the whistle attached to your wrist by a string. If it falls on the ground you may find it blocked with mud and have to stop the game. Carry the whistle in your hand and not in your mouth. In the old annuals when people dared to give instructions to referees the following was one of them:

“Don’t hold your whistle in your mouth; you will make enough mistakes without blowing it inadvertently.” Be firm with players, but quiet. Separate in your mind questions of fact and questions of interpretation. You can be challenged on the latter but not on the former. If a try is claimed on a disputed interpretation, allow the kick at goal. If your decisions on matters of fact are challenged, send the challenger off the field. By so acting you will diffuse a certain amount of Rugby Union knowledge, unfortunately not well understood by the Rugby Union Committees themselves. Think

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out possibilities and come to conclusions thereon. That time spent will never be lost to you. Remember a try can only be obtained when a hand is on a stationary ball. You have to be convinced of this. Referees’ slovenliness in this respect has brought it about that nowadays a player does not know how to go over a line to score, and most of them who try to fall on the ball, drop on their knees first, usually a preliminary to missing it altogether.

Finally, separate rebounds and knocks on. Two rules might be well altered. I do not mean there are not others;

1. A ball should have to pass over and fall beyond the bar to score a goal.

2. A ball landing in the field of play after crossing the touchline in its flight should be in play.

Under the present rule, in the great majority of instances, judgment is either impossible or so difficult that it would be better to alter the rule rather than ask referees to give decisions where they have no means of judging.

The keeping of the time seems to reach no settled position. A clock at the pavilion with a pendulum which could be started and stopped as directed by the referee’s whistle, would show the time accurately at the end of 45 minutes. It would be in view of everybody. It would free the referee from making the mistakes which are frequently made, and would acquaint the players from moment to moment how time is flying and help to get back the old “vim” of the last ten minutes. This method has been adopted in Wellington.

THE PRESS AND THE GAME.

Many years ago football reports in the Press contained a solid basis of criticism. There players had their faults pointed out to them and foul play and doubtful tactics received their due censure. Reporters of football knew the game, understood how it should be played, and recognised the very definite gulf which often lies between merit and success. They understood the value of true amateurism and regarded the pot-hunter with a proper abhorrence. This was before the days of American “boost” and

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optimism; at a time when teams of footballers were not regarded as advertisers of cigarettes, boots, etc., before they had been named “our real ambassadors.”

Nowadays a reporter often does not know what he is looking at or has to fill up his report with “super-men.” “avalanches,” “meteors,” “granite white faces” et hoc genus omne. Many a man, I suppose, has been asked, as I have been by one of the tribe, “to tell him about it” in order that he might be enabled to present what would pass as a report of the game.

In “Football Notes” you read of players of prominence being put into business in order to procure their services for a particular district, of contributions by the business people of the place, hopeful that the crowds who attend Ranfurly Cup matches will have shekels concealed in their raiment. You may even read of a player making arrangements with one group and after involving them in some expense, yielding to the golden blandishments of another group. But no one ever reads in the Press condemnation of such actions.

In these days of the Kodak football has not escaped, and in the season many photographs of incidents in games are offered by the newspapers to the public. Most of them show how foul the game is. The Press prints these photographs and the letter press under some of the pictures is often amusing and recalls the advice never to judge the contents of a bottle by the label. The Press does not condemn foul play; the interest which the Press takes in Rugby football does not do the Press credit. I remember on one occasion a prominent Rugby official announced that additional money would be given secretly to the members of a team to eke out the poor allowance that had been agreed on by the N.Z. Rugby Union with the English Rugby Union. The Press was silent. On another occasion the captain of an Otago travelling team struck an opposing captain in the face; when the account appeared in a Dunedin newspaper the portion dealing with the incident was undecipherable. On inquiry I found this could be managed by hammering the type after it had been set. The foul player seems to have friends even in high places.

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The refereeing of important foreign matches by New ealand referees has been on many occasions so one-sided as to fTaVT/ S c POrtSman - ,“ The game was capably conmu eC r 7 • r ’ So ~ and ' So ” 18 wll at you may expect in the Press. These few instances are sufficient. We can expect nothing from the Press. The players and controllers of the game must make up their minds to get it clean again. Perhaps that dav will not dawn till New Zealand has received a few sound lickings Nations under such circumstances have become thoughtful again and footballers will too.

SUGGESTIONS WITH REGARD TO RUGBY FOOTBALL.

1. New Zealand Football was built up on the Provincial basis. New Zealand Football has died under centralisation. <Jnce there were provincial styles, A battle of styles produced great games. Now there are no styles; if you see one team, you have seen them all. I think a return to Provincial control would be of help.

2. The controllers of football should be-men who have played good football and understand what good football is. This, of course, applies to selectors of teams. Men have travelled New Zealand selecting football teams who have not known what they were looking at. This democratic idea of giving everyone a chance should be given ud

3. The money affairs of the Unions should be handed over to qualified accountants and the Rugby Unions left free to control the referees and control and teach the game. The scandalous relationships existing between Rugby Unions and sports depots should come to an end.

4. The New Zealand players should accept the Laws of the Game as decided by the English Union; in the first place because uniformity in rules and ruling are very desirable, and in the second place because New Zealand always makes such a mess of any attempt to deal with the rules.

5. The Unions should be loya] to one another and to decency and not attempt to upset decisions arrived at after due consideration. The review of penalties by successors in office in

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the same Union should cease. The number of foul player; re-introduced to the game by this means has been too great The dirty player seems to be the white-haired boy of many oi our Unions.

6. Referees should be under the control of the Rugby Union as the players are. They should be forced to administer the Laws of the Game as they are laid down and allowed no whims. The Rugby Unions should learn at the same time what matter of fact means and what interpretation of the Law means.

7. Selectors of Teams: I prefer one selector, if possible the captain. After the team is selected let it be played against the next seventeen. If your selection is good the fifteen ought always to win, or else you have no outstanding men. In the old days the fifteen always used to win.

8. All foul play must be jumped on with both feet. Many of the coarser varieties should mean expulsion from the game, just as from a decent club. In five years senior football I never saw a man strike an opponent. His captain would have sent him off the ground. Just now there is another recrudescence of the coarser sort of foul play. New Zealand teams seem to have only one reply to capable opponents, and that is to try to knock them out. It speaks badly for football when we hear that players are reserved and not allowed to play for their teams, in case they should be hurt and thus rendered ineligible for some match of greater importance.

9. Replacing players should be done away with. When the Springboks travelled New Zealand there were no replacements and very few men left the field. It is not a fair thing to bring on fresh players m the last few minutes of the game and it gives many chances to that much valued gentleman “the shrewdy.” Teams resting a “star” in a soft match may be unduly tempted if things go wrong to have a “casualty” that makes way for his advent. What a low suggestion! Who ever would dream of such a thing? Clear your mind of cant, my friend, and keep your eyes open!

Perhaps there are some people left who appreciate the stern joy of the stricken field; when there are more of them we shall

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have better lootball again. There are many reports circulated that there is a good deal of betting on matches and I am sure that the non-replacement of players would act beneficially in this respect.

10. As I suggested twenty-five years ago—in another twenty-five years, or (as it is a more vital matter) in say, forty years the Rugby Union will attend to its real business and hand it’s finance over to properly qualified people. Inter-provincial matches should be cut down. The whole meaning of them is gone. Any sort of team travels, and as long as people are so foolish will travel. The public should take a line from the Chinese and try the Rugby Union with a few empty grandstands. If Otago play Southland and Canterbury every year and played one match with a visiting team, that would be sufficient. The Rugby Unions could then attend to their domestic football, which wants attention badly enough. The cry for less interprovincial football is being raised now by the very people on the Rugby Union who were most opposed to its reduction twentyfive years ago. You will note that that is the common history of the behavour of people who are not doing their duty and have a proper contempt for the intelligence of their fellow men. The cry of theirs is not really the expression of any opinion they have, and as long as the public flocks to look at mediocre football their burning feelings in this matter will not result in any definite action.

A travelling team should be thought of only when by diligent domestic culture you have produced a specially good lot and can send them away hoping they will be able to instruct other teams, as the great 1877 Otago team did. They were before my time, but many of those players were still playing years after, and I have a very great respect for them as players and as men.

11. Football should be taught again.

I suggested a large tan floored hall to the Otago Rugby Football Union some twenty-five years ago, where players could go at any time during the season and practice passing, starting, running, and be cured of many bad habits. It is still a great

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desideratum provided that the rules were strict and strictly ■enforced.

Ihe Otago Rugby Football Union might import a running leather man from America and have tackling learnt again, for America, as I have said, is the only place where the old tackling is still practised.

A few kinematographs should not be out of the reach of the authorities. Hot and cold water, indeed, might be hoped for.

This building could be made a starting and finishing point for a trot to Mosgiel and back, or to the Junction and back. Junior teams in the old days thought nothing of trotting from Maori Hill to Mosgiel and back of an evening. The old Alhambra team spent the whole of Sunday out in tire open with a football, and spent their Sunday well. The sparkling games that team put up were due to a great extent to the combination and “cameraderie” derived from these jaunts. The old Poneke team in Wellington, a famous team of the eighties, also went in for the same sort of practice.

This cry, \\ hy shouldn’t we be as good?”—a verv stupid rejoinder, is easily answered. Because you don’t try to qualify; because you don’t think it important to learn the A.8.C.; because you do think that this life is a game of bluff and that if the newspapers and the Rugby Unions are continually crying “all is well, that it will go. But some day standing on the unstable ground of falsehood one finds oneself “Controlling Dairy Prices” or going to South Africa to take part in a series of games where muddle and the blind goddess are the presiding Deities.

Remember the state of South African football in 1891—but three points scored against 233. Think of New Zealand football at that period—with a Seddon’s team successfully met, the marvellous performances of the Maori team, and heap the ashes of repentance on your heads and get to work and learn to play football again.

In the summer season even the cricketer could, with advantage to his cricket, learn to handle a football and practise a few movements in company with others.

127

People talk about teaching in the schools, but the boy who has good models before him in his elders, won’t require much teaching, and even if he got good teaching in the schools, what is the use of it, if at eighteen he is pitched into football of the present day description.

These matters are all in the players’ hands. They can get Rugby Football again in place of the poor stuff which now masquerades as it. I have seen inter-provincial matches so destitute of interest that, if the field had been ploughed and the ball buried overnight, and the thirty men had been brought on the ground to search for the ball (the winning team to be the finder) it would hardly have proved more wearisome. Ah! but asks my cautious friend, “Who would bury the ball?’’ “Quis custodict?”

151

General Index

Pagt

Advantage Rule 116

Blind Man, the 76

Blind Side, the 81

Backing up 72

Up .... .... .... .... .... .... .... Captaincy 11l

Catching 54

Control of Ball 43

Control of Game 114

Defence 88

Dribbling 52

Five-eighths 92

Footballs: too tight 43; Extra 118

Football History 9

Forwards 8^

Foul Play 107

Full Back 98

Half-backs 9^;

Handling a Football 43

Kicking 49; Off and Out 77; Place Kicking 51

Line Out 63

Mark 117

Passing 45

Place Kicking 51

Press 122

Propaganda 5

Punt-About 5f

Punting 50

Refereeing 114,118

Rugby Football—Possibilities 110

Suggestions 124

Straight Running 71

Scrummage, 60: Opening up game from, 79; What comes of it 100

Suggestions 42, 124

Tackling 5(

Tackling a charging runner 58

The Play 71

Throwing a football 43

Three-quarter backs 95

Triangle, Principle of 73