'VARSITY TEAM'S RETURN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 65, 17 March 1936, Page 12

'VARSITY TEAM'S RETURN.

ARRIVAL IN WELLINGTON. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Monday.; Seventeen of the New Zealand University Rugby players and the manager, Mr. P. Martin "Smith, and. Mr. A. McPliail (Canterbury), who travelled with the arrived, by the Makura from Sydney this ,n;orning. , Fifty or more •pyjama-clad students from Weir Hostel welcomed the arrivals, in student fashion. Interviewed, Mr. Martin Smith spoke enthusiastically of the type of football played.-in Japan, and also of the hospitality*. showered upon . them. "They play a. very good tvp'e of football, and they "are exceedingly well trained and 1 disciplined," *he said. "Their team work is excellent, but they lack individual initiative somewhat. They play like a machine." .He said also the Japanese were very keen to learn, as in other spheres, and the result was that towards the end of the tour it was noticeable that improved form was being displayed by the Japanese. They played delightful football in the final Test. They played a 3-2-2 scrum, the extra man being used sometimes as a rover and sometimes as an extra three-quar-ter called a "seven-eighth," and played usually half way between the threequarters and the full-back. The New Zealanders had to fall back on the 2-3-2 formation. He personally was satisfied the 3-4-1 and 3-2-2 formations were no good. Difficulty was experienced by the New Zealand forwards in the scrum, due largely to the fact that their opponents, being small and nuggety, packed lower and the New Zealanders' weight was rendered ineffective. A feature of the Japanese game was their passing, which wa3 done at great pace. They pass and pass until a man is free, and then he goes through.: There was very little real effort to beat a man, although in the final Test they were coming through quite a bit. The New Zealand team took a while to settle down. The grounds had no turf, and in Japan a particularly cold winter had been experienced, jOne member of the New Zealand team. Hudson, from Canterbury College, stay?d behind in Japan to pursue his studies in structural engineering, with special reference to i earthquake resisting construction.