All Black Defeat Has Lessons For All Boy Scouts

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 15057, 18 August 1949, Page 5

All Black Defeat Has Lessons For All Boy Scouts

"The Game Is More Than

Player Of Game"

Strength And Fundamental

Soundness

Were ycu all depressed at the failure of the All Blacks to win the second Test? I get a bit depressed at the failure of troop news so have to substitute a "talk" most weeks. This is a busy world and I'm sure all scouts' and cubs do not have the opportunity to read the daily editorials so I -am going to quote from one published in a city paper on August 15. If you read it carefully, I think it has a very real message for us all boys in particular. "In the language of the weather prophets a deep depression advanced on New Zealand in the small hours of yesterday morning from as far afield "as Johannesburg. This had to contend with a ridge of moderately high pressure which originated a little earlier over Kensington Oval, in London. The result again, as the weather prophets would say, has been a complex situation, with a tendency for the depression to become general. On the long-awaited day of the two tests Rugby at Johannesburg meant so much to all loyal New Zealanders that even the stout performance of our cricketers affords little solace tor ihe defeat oi the All Blacks. Dangerous Habit Of Mind "It is our habit in this country to <-'ke prowess: at Rugby very seriously That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Civilised communities throughout the ages have done honour to the athlete of distinction, and our passion for the competitive zest of Rugby is no less healthy than iho delight of ihe ancient Greeks in the spectacle of the first Olympic Games. A people can lose its sense of athletic proportions, however. \i it insists that in any game, its chosen representatives must be invincible That is a habit of mind which wc have been in danger of cultivating over our own particular national game. An assumption of invincibility can make an individual, a team, or even a people most cordially detested.

"At Rugby wc are not invincible. That has been proved to us in the past by South Africans and even or j odd occasions bv Englishmen and Welshmen. The fact that the South Africans have largely assumed our I former legend of invin-'Mlitv n°ed not fill us with despair. In the first place, we in New Zealand should congratulate the victorious Springboks as heartily as our defeated players did at Johannesburg on Saturday. They beat us fairly and squarely in a clean, hard game. Next, wc should stop to reflect en the very real merit of the South African victory. For all the talk of onerous travel and minor injuries the All Blacks have enjoyed certain advantages. Not the least of these is the amount of first class football our players' have experienced since the war. The nucleus of the present All Blacks in a group of players from the Armv Kiwis who excelled on a tour of the British Isles immediately after the war. Most of our player.' have, also been "blooded" in two post-war series of international matches' with the Australians. "The South Africans en the other hand have played no international Rugby since before the Avar. Their triumph favoured to some extent by luck in the first test but thoroughly deserved in the second —' is the triumph of their indigenous type of play." This writer whom J have quoted goes on to say how the South African football right through—in spite of some handicaps—has revenled th* "level strength and fundamental soundness of the Springbok game," and later on adds that "performances and results apart, the footballers and cricketers have lightened the winter for us. They have taken our minds off some of the ugly things that press on us too closely these days. They have encouraged us to think that the clean eager spirit of youth can rise above +he selfishness and bickering of the workaday world—and for that, at least, we should be grateful." Take Defeat Smilingly Do you all see how it sums up your Scouting Laws? Scouts should always be able to live up to the "level strength and fundamental soundness" that B.P. meant scouting to be. Scouts should always be able t; take defeat smilingly and still fee 1 the game has been a good game and worth playing. Scouts should even, perhaps, feel pleased that New Zealand isn't sjpreme in her Rugby tests—•for don't you think we get a bit smug sometimes? And when we sum it all up we shouldn't be very

proud of ourselves. Not many people in New Zealand are working hard and giving of their very best to overcome the troubles of the world. We did not get air-raids or flying bombs or the real devastation of war, so we are rather more complacent than most of the world, yet in our hearts we hall have a very strong heritage and background in England which is so aptly brought out in this talk. Rugby, I think, originated at the famous English school of that name. Cricket to so many people seems to typify England, and deep in our hearts' it typifies all the traditions and integral background that is England part of our valuable heritage something we should fight for and when we say "to play cricket" as a figure of speech, we mean that we can lose with a smile congratulate from a warm heart a better man who has won and still go away with a true spirit of sportsmanship in our hearts'. A Scout Promise: On my honour I will do my best to do my duty to God and the King, to help other people at all time:: To obey the Scout law.