THE ALL BLACKS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18267, 29 December 1924, Page 10

THE ALL BLACKS.

CONTINUED. the London backs were not in the same class. Thoy were surpassed individually as well as collectively, and it must be remembered th,at the two halves, Lawton and Guthrie, are both Blackheath men, while the two centres, Aslett and Richardson, are both from tho Richmond Club. The simple fact was that they were not good enough. . I have seen Lawton play great games in New Zealand and England, but he j met more than his mat. h this time. The first sign of the approaching storm was when Parker snapped up a difficult pass, raced up to Millar, and transferred to Svenson, who, when collared by the full-back, left Cooke a clear passage. Not long afterwards Svenson and Parker were fed by Mill, and the Christchurch man scored. Nicholls omitted to convert these tries, though his attempts were good. Cooko and Nicholls now took charge of the game. They worked together amazingly well, and Nicholls showed himself as good in attack as he always is in defence. Nicholls cut through, Cooko followed him to receive a good pass, and indulge in a wonderful dash, which allowed him to transfer to Richardson in a scoring position. The process was repeated soon afterwards without the necessity of Cooke passing. Then, as a grand finale, Parker collected the ball, kicked by Millar at about two yards' range, and raced away to beat the full-back easily with a splendid turn of speed. On his play on Saturday, and, indeed, throughout the tour, a place must certainly be found for Parker in the remaining Internationals. The final score, .31-6, in no.-way er- , aggerates the, superiority of the All Blacks. Svenson was the only back who appeared a little below his best form. Hart gave still more evidence . that he is well worth a place in tfie . team, while in the second half Cooke and Nicholls were superb. All the j forwards played extremely well. J i A VERY POOR DISPLAY. _____ i NORTHUMBERLAND MATCH. j I (SPECIALIST WRITTEN 10* "THE PRESS. ") ,\ (By A. H. Cannan.) j After showing such improved form ' in their previous matches the All ' Blacks closed their Northern tour with a very inferior display. Their scrummaging was very weak, their handling , was poor, and their defence not quite • so sound as usual. The pack broke? up in every scrummage and generally let the opposition get away with the. ball at their feet, although it must be said they failed to make much use of it. Our 'packing was very poor, and it was not entirely the hookers' fault that they failed to get possession of the ' the loose Richardson, Donald, and Cyril Brownlie were the best, but their customary backing-up of their rearguard was lacking. Mill, at half-back, showed the difference it makes between playing | ' behind a winning pack and one such ' as the above. He failed to get the • ball from the feet of the opposing forwards, and, indeed, very- few of our backs showed any aptitude for this . class of work. Whitley, for Northum- •••' berland, was probably the best player on-.the ground, and retained all the improved form he showed in South Africa . with the British team. He reminds one very much of Dalley, especially on : defence, and is just as keen on hard work. Wallace and Catcheside, the . other two notables in the Northumber- . land side, were very ordinary, and \ played no better than their fellows, '. though the latter's potted goal was a , good effort. , Play was so poorsin the first spell that it was hardly worth a score at, all, , though Hart really deserved the honour individually. The slight improvement in handling which took place after the interval, enabled the All Blacks to get the upper hand of weak opponents, who rapidly went from bad to worse, especially on defence. The large score greatly flatters our play, and a good New Zealand representative team would have found no difficulty in easily defeating the All Blacks pn the day. With the hardest part of the tour now • in front of us, and with very few "easy" matches to break the run, we cannot afford to have any more off-days, which would probably prove fatal. Considering the really great play at Belfast, it must be inexplicable to those i in New Zealand as to how the team can collapse so much in a few short i dayß. Were they with the team, how- . ever, they. would realise the absence of that solidity and combination which should bind a touring team together. 1 The players are left too much to them- . selves and their own devices, and the . younger players especially have not shown the improvement expected of .. them, mainly through the lack of someone to tell them what to do and how to do it. There is a lack of plan about . everything, and one realises the difference the absence of a coach has , meant, and what might have been. Fortunately, every man is determined to do his best to win game on the tour, and it is often only this determination, which does bind the players together to some extent, that gives us any superiority over the opposition. Individually we have no stars to be compared with men like W. J. Wallaco, ' J. Hunter, F. Roberts, C. Seeling, or G. Smith, their nearest approaches being 6. Nepia, Mark Nicholls, A. E. Cooke, M. J. Brownlie, or A. H. Hart' and these are all inferior to any of • the "stars" of 1905. Cooke is now not nearly so good as in New Zealand, and one misses his straight Tunning. Brownlie is very good, and Nicholls and Nepia are also consistently good but .they are about all. Hart" is one 1 of the few who nave improved, and ' played very well at Newcastle, but never had any room to work in. Brown has never yet shown anything like his Sydney form, and on Saturday dropped many passes, and always crowded his wings. Steel is not anything extra-. ordinary, but tries hard. McGregor played very well in the loose and on defence, but could not fit into the combination. Parker was the best All Black on the field, and played a really dashing game. He is a better wing- . forward than Porter on their respective play to date, though the latter has far too much work to do as captain, and does not get a fair chance of showing his real form.