AFRICAN VIEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 189, 11 August 1928, Page 15

AFRICAN VIEWS.

"FINEST PACK IN THE WORLD." ALL BLACKS BEATEN POINTLESS. Commenting in the Johannesburg *®aily Mail," F. M. Howard says:—The some side's total was made up of two dropped goals and two penalty goals, all kicked by "Bennie" Osier, and one try scored by Jack Slater. The "great little Bennie" was thus the hero of the day, and he notched the first 14 out of the 17 points made by his •ide. Osier rote nobly to the occasion. His kicking was magnificent and he played precisely the right type of game for the circumstances. This was a vital Test match, not a club game. And he was fully justified in taking as few risks as possible even late in the match, and in pursuing his main policy of kicking right to the bitter end.

Bennie Osier would be the very first to admit, I feel certain, that if he obtained the points the chief credit for the crashing defeat thus inflicted upon the All Blacks must nevertheless go to the wonderful Springbok pack. Such a stranglehold did the eight Bouth African forwards, reduced to seven in the second half, obtain upon their immediate opponents that four-flfths of the play took place in New Zealand territory. Other packs have managed before now to subdue a representative All Black pack, but never have I seen one or tieard of ona that maintained its grip without a break and never relaxed for even fir* minutes of the eighty. Strive as they might, the All Black forwards could never shake themselves free from that death grip. Right op to the last ten minutes I expected every moment to see the Springboks take a brief "easy," forced to do so by the sheer strain of their m exertions. And how fatal such *

breather almost always is against the All Blacks anyone who has seen them tako full advantage of one can testify. But the "easy" never came. To the very last those superb Springbok forwards retained the mastery, and to a degree that I have rarely seen in an international match and never against such stalwarts as form the All Blacks' pack. South Africa has every reason to feel justly proud of her forwards. On Saturday's form they unquestionably represent the finest pack in the world to-day. Uncommon Penalty. Saturday's match also was noteworthy in a minor way in that we saw—most of us for the first time—the putting into actual practice of an uncommon kind of penalty provided for by the rules. I refer to the punishment meted out in the case of a player being deliberately tackled after he has kicked the ball. The rule lays down that in such a case a penalty kick shall be awarded at the spot where the ball pitched. After 18 minutes of the second half had been played, Bennie Osier received the ball from a scrummage on the New Zealand "40" and kicked up field towards the opposing goal. Johnson definitely tackled Osier. It was not merely the effect of the sheer impetus of his run, and Mr. V. H. Neser, to the bewilderment of many people, awarded South Africa a penalty kick at the spot (right in frojpt of goal), where the ball had pitched from Osier's kick. The latter thus had little difficulty in increasing I his side's lead, and his own individual score from 11 to 14 points.

The match, needless to say, was already well and truly won and lost at the time, and the referee's decision, if startling in its uncommonness, was absolutely right and fair.

The other player to cost the All Blacks three points was Maurice Brownlie, for an off-side offence seven minutes earlier, well inside the New Zealand twenty-five. But this kick was at a fairly difficult angle and the goal points took some getting. Poor Line Kicking. Lindsay was the only man on the All Black side whose kicking could seriously compare with that of Osier's, Tindall's, Van Druten's, or that of Pretorious. In that phase of the play, of course, South Africa held a tremendous advantage and fairly rubbed it in. How some of the ii) 24 All Blacks must have sighed for a Cooke or a Nepia. Those long and accurate kicks to touch must have been aimply heart-breaking to the visitors, 1 'd in a deadly vice as they were iu ready in the scrummages. Bennie Osley, of course, was responsible for most of the damage, and after him Tindall; but Stanley Osier and Pretorious also did their useful share, and one magnificent kick by Dr. Van Druten's right along the touch-line, which regained a full 50 yards of ground, weU deserves' mention.

TJie scrummages wero 36 to 15 in favour of South Africa, and the linesout roughly two to one in favour of New Zealand.