SUGGESTIONS FOR MORE BACK PLAY

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29797, 13 April 1962, Page 13

SUGGESTIONS FOR MORE BACK PLAY

(Neu) Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, April 12 Destructive forward play had increased so much that backs were not getting a reasonable chance to play the ball: this applied particularly to the first five-eighths. Mr C. K. Saxton told the annual meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Union yesterday. Mr Saxton compared the opportunities afforded backs under the 2-3-2 scrum formation and the 3-4-1. “In the days of the 2-3-2. backs from the start of their career had the opportunity to practice skills and put them into effect. We must bring back some of those things to give the backs more time to run and pass the ball “The British Isles outlawed the xving forward as we know him in 1930, but the British Isles then produced three wing forwards—and we all copied it. "South Africa in 1949 produced a number eight forward from the line-out. ready to pounce on the second five-eighths immediately he got the ball. "So. with the British Isles loose men and the No. 8. we had the scrounging forward from the scrummage, loose scrummage, and line-out, the three places from which came the majority of possession. “The team winning the ball must be given reasonable opportunity’ to play the ball.” he said. Mr Saxton made three suggestions to cure the situation, designed to give the backs more room and time to function, and to prevent loose forwards from “scrounging on the five-eighths” and opposing back-lines from getting up too quickly The suggestions were:

Any forward not part of the scrummage should not be more than one arm’s length from the

body of the scrum; a similar restriction should be placed on the front and back forward in the line-out: the backs on defence should not advance beyond the base of their own scrummage before the bail la out Wings weren't scoring tries, said Mr Saxton, and it was because five-eighths were being tackled virtually before the ball was in their hands. Passing in New Zealand was worse than anywhere else in the world “We don't want to get awar from our robust, vigorous forward play—but let's try to do something for our backs too Mr T H. Pearce ( Auckland) considered it wrong to legislate against one section of a team. The answer, he said, was integrated play between backs and forwards

A big factor in improving the game was to destroy the certainty of one team winning possession from the scrum.