GAMES AND PLAYERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27149, 19 September 1953, Page 9

GAMES AND PLAYERS

ATHLETIC SPORTS

[By MILES} Strong Forwards The exhaustive series of trials with the most serious test of all in the North-South Island match reveals a strength in forwards not generally expected and the All Blacks will leave New Zealand with the full confidence followers of the game in the ability of the select eight to hold their own with any team in the world. Men like Skinner, White, Jones, McCaw and Bagley measure up to the highest standard set by Seeling, Johnston, Brownlie, Richardson and others, although it seems that one of New Zealand’s best locks in Burke (Taranaki) has been left out. When Otago held the Ranfurly Shield the strength of New Zealand forward play rested in the South Island. Today tne positions are reversed and North Island teams have adopted a faster, more open style Ox play to match the hard rucking, tight game played by the best Otago packs. They break quickly from the side of the scrum and generally play a faster brand of football. Of the four breakaways picked for the All Blacks three are from the North Island while South Island provides two No. 8 men, one lock and three front rankers. When the forwards break they follow up fast not singly but in well fanned formation of three or four. This was most noticeable in the North-South game where K. Stuart was called on to do a real full-back’s work while in comparison Scot had an arm-chair ride against the slower South Island men. There should be no question of the New Zealand forwards not being able to match any team they meet in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales or France. Backs Below Class

i It is a pity that the same confidence cannot be held about the backs for outside Haig and Jarden few looked like All Blacks in the trial games, although several showed promise of better things to come. The responsibility resting on the shoulders of Haig may be too much for any man to carry although he will be worth his weight in gold for the knowledge he will impart to young and promising players. Haig makes all half-backs look reasonably good and no man outside him is ever called on to do more than his share. The big problem for men in charge of the selection on tour will be to find the man to take Haig’s place when he is not available for even the iron man cannot play in every game. The only other first five-eighths chosen is Bowers. He is only 20 years old, and the tour may be the making of him. There is a big difference between his class and that of Haig. Jarden is one of the greatest New Zealand wing-three-quarters of 1 all time—if not the greatest. He has everything a good wing-three-quarters needs, Davis, half-back, may develop into a second Jimmy Mill. ! Playing inside Haig, he will be given every chance for he has youth on his side. Bevan is not the half-back he was a few years ago and at the age of 31 years he can hardly be expected to improve. Of the second five-eghths chosen Fitzpatrick (Wellington) weighs 12st 121 b but both Wilson and Loader are rather frail for test football. Scott, who had definitely retired from big football two years ago, will be of little help when the South Africans tour New Zealand in 1956, and though he has provided plenty of thrills in a long career, surely a younger man could have been chosen. Neither Scott nor Kelly has ever earned fame as a rush-stopper or tackler. The team lacks men of the proved ability of Ron Elvidge or Maurice Goddard as centres for neither Tanner nor Fitzgerald is in their class. Yet this team going straight from one season’s football to another and returning for a third may develop a Davis-Haig-Wilson-Fitz-gerald-Jarden back-line which will compare with the Roberts-Mynott-Hunter-Wallace-Smith-t). McGregor, or Mill - Nicholls -N. McGregor - Cooke-Svenson-Steel combinations of years ago. Names

Before the selection of the 1949 New Zealand cricket team to tour England, A E. Cresswell of Marlborough was given every chance of wining a place in the team. In the last few weeks before the team left, his brother, G. F. Cresswell, came to the fore, and was selected, A. E. being left out. J. G. Leggat. of Canterbury, was expected to tour South Africa with the New Zealand cricket team in the coming summer. He failed to win a place—but a cousin, I. B. Leggat, came into prominence at a late stage and is included in the side. The Canterbury Rugby full-back, K. C. Stuart, was expected to have a good chance of getting into the All Black team, for Britain. He is not in the side, but his brother, R. C. Stuart, who at the start of the season had only a slim chance, is captain.

Round the Gorges The Christchurch Amateur Cycling Club has received an excellent entry of 71 for the annual Round-the-Gorges race which will be held today. The race, which covers 100 miles, will start at Papanui at 9.30 a.m. and finish on the Halswell road. The roads are in excellent condition. Among the leading competitors are Lance Payne, of Palmerston North, who won the national 100 miles championshoip at Dunedin last year, Roger Fowler, another good rider on the scratch mark, Don Fraser of Invercargill, Joe Faulkner, and Kelvin Hastie, Dunedin. Jim Hargreaves, of Wellington, who holds the Christchurch-Invercargill unpaced record, is on the 21 minute mark. Last year’s winner, lan Fleming of Invercargill, will have a difficult task from the 16 minute mark but his chance must not be discounted

Unusual Distinction The election of a woman to life membership of a cricket club must be unusual, but there is no doubt that the election of Miss E. Orchard to life membership of East Christchurch club is an honour richly deserved. Miss Orchard, whose father, Dr. A. J. Orchard, has been president of the club since its formation nearly 50 years ago, has a very keen interest in the club, and opening days are usually marked by the receipt of an elaborately and suitably decorated cake. Meetings of the club’s management committee are always held at Dr. Orchard’s home, and doubtless the discussions have been kept on a harmonious level by the suppers for which Miss Orchard has become noted throughout the club. It seems likely, too, that the East Christchurch club, unlike some of its contemporaries, does not suffer from a lack of volunteers for official positions. A Poor Show

The much boosted match between Barry Brown and Bernie Hall, billed as the New South Wales champion, filled the Wellington Town Hall on Monday and early on the day of the fight ringside tickets were being sold at black-market prices. The contest was a complete flop, for after one of the dullest displays Hall took the count after stopping a right-hand punch on the body. There were features of the alleged fight which did not please the big crowd. The “Dominion” says:—“Hall admitted after the fight that he was not ‘really interested.’ He said that he had taken such a drubbing from the negro Freddie Dawson that it was not surprising his showing was so poor. Hall did nothin" to engage the sympathy of the capacity crowd in the Wellington Town Hall. He entered, or rather slipped furtively into, the ring with a towel over his head, completely hiding his face. When he did not re move it when the gloves were being adjusted sections of the crowd heckled him. Even when he met Brown and the referee in mid-ring for instructions he kept the towel in place and he was in the ring for nearly 10 minutes before his face was revealed. He had not shaved for several days and with his dark features his looks suffered badly by comparison with the clean-cut Brown. It was Hall’s eighty-third fight fourteenth loss.”

Sport in Britain The condition of a sport in these days increasingly is subjected to the acid test of international competition, writes the athletic correspondent of “The Times,” London. More and more countries are producing footballers, boxers and athletes of various kinds, some driven by another growing force, the urge to be “more equal”—as Orwell might have remarked—than their h .herto superiors. Sometimes the test has had rather too much acid in it, but at least it has served as a warning to this easy-going country that slovenly techniques and complacency spell failure. Happily, the amateur sport of athletics in Great Britain has accepted the challenge in good heart and a proper spirit and already is beginning to reap its reward. People who can think only of our inability to win any gold medals at the last two Olympic Games are inclined still to pessimism. These have been cheered a little in the last few months by a continued rise—occasionally startling—in the British standards, but the feeling persists that our amateurs as a whole cannot hope to equal in serious intent training and applied skill the world champions of the outside world. All Black Fullbacks

While agreeing that R. W. H. Scott of Auckland is still the best full-back in the country, a correspondent signing himself “No Foresight” alleges lack of foresight on the part of the New Zealand selectors for including Scott in this year’s All Blacks. “I seem to remember an occasion two years ago when the New Zealand and Auckland unions made presentations to Scott on the occasion of his retirement from first-class football. This year, however, with a tour of Britain in sight, he has seen fit to forget he had hung up his boots. No doubt, at the conclusion of this tour, he will return and announce, once again, his retirement. and the benefit to be gained from the tour of this nature will be lost to New Zealand Rugby. By including Scott in this year’s team the selectors have debarred a younger man from gaining the experience necessary to bring a fullback up to Scott’s standard. Scott may be the

best fullback in the country, I agree, but the only reason he is is that he has had the experience gained from many tours that others have not been lucky enough to get. With the Springboks’ tour coming up in 1956, it is entirely beyond my comprehension why the selectors could not take two young full backs who will be ready to take their place behind a New Zealand team in 1956. It could be argued that the selectors had to pick the best team available. Nonsense. New Zealand must look to young players for its future needs and in K. C. Stuart (Canterbury) and L. T. Head (Wanganui) the Dominion has very competent fullbacks who only need a tour such as this one to give them that high polish that is Scott’s. This is not just my opinion, but is that of a large section of the Rugby population throughout the country. I am disappointed—in Scott for agreeing to nomination for the All Blacks, and in the selectors for their apparent sanctioning of a procedure which seems, to me, to be extremely unsportsmanlike,” the letter concludes. Shield Fever

Equipped with blankets, pillows, vacuum flasks and sandwiches, the first two members of the Ranfurly Shield grandstand ticket queue took up their position in a Panama street doorway in Wellington at 8.50 o’clock on Tuesday night. With a pack of cards and “two pairs of everything” Mr and Mrs Hansom, of The Terrace, were ready to face their frosty 11hour vigil for four of those precious tickets for today’s Canterbury-Welling-ton match. At 9.15 they were joined by Mr G. Turner (with bed and a vast quantity of egg sandwiches), and by 10.15 the queue had grown to 12, says thf “Dominion.” The .All Black team was the main topic of conversation, the queue being unanimous on one point—“not enough Wellington boys in.” It was a quiet group, however, and there was more dozing and silent cardnlaying than talking. It was also, on the average, a middle-aged group, with elderlv couples outnumbering, youths. “These voung chaps donV take their football seriously enough* these davs.” said one man in his late ’ fifties. “If they were real Rugby men they’d be down here with us.”