Australia Could Test All Blacks

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31383, 31 May 1967, Page 13

Australia Could Test All Blacks

IRELAND’S short Rugby 1 tour of Australia in May left two conclusions.

The first is that the Australian public does not like the international rule which allows kicking out on the full from any part of the field. The other is that Australia is capable of fielding a team to throw down a sharp challenge to the All Blacks in the New Zealand Rugby Union’s seventy-fifth anniversary celebration match between the two countries on August 19; Australia is probably without a peer in the Rugby world as an inconsistent performer.

One day It will play world-beating football, as the All Blacks found out several times in tests in New Zealand, while in the next match it is likely to go down to a team little better than an ordinary club side.

This is borne out by the inconsistent performances on the recent tour of the United Kingdom, Ireland and France, and if further confirmation is needed, one has only to look at the Irish tour. New South Wales, which always supplies the bulk of Australian test teams, overran Ireland to score a 21-9 win. Yet virtually the same team—three Queenslanders were included—a week later was beaten 5-11. And only three days after that a Sydney team walked all over Ireland and won 30-8.

The Australian pack for the game against the All Blacks should be good, provided the selectors do not allow Interstate feelings to dominate their thinking. At most there should be only one Queenslander in the side, but Rugby politics could see the inclusion of another one or two. The kicking out on the full is very unpopular in Australia. In domestic Rugby, up to Interstate standard, Australia has a dispensation from the International Rugby Board to play an amended kick-lnto-touch rule. This rule, not altogether unknown in New

Zealand, bars kicking out on the full, except by a defending side in its own twentyfive.

Adherents claim this tends to keep the ball in play, and make the game more enjoyable and attractive for both player and spectator.

In international matches Australia uses the international rule; her players naturally start off at a slight disadvantage, hut soon adapt themselves to the change.

The rule came under fire after the Ireland-Australia test, in which kicking out went on for a good part of the game. Critics and spectators claimed they saw too many line-outs, and too little of other phases of the game.

Australia has been pressing at top level for years for the international law to be changed, but without result It is reported it has secured some support for its case, but not enough to carry the day.

New Zealand played under the amended law in the 1920’5, and again in 1937. The fact that it has reverted to the international law may have some significance.

The international law may be a reason why New Zealand has had such full-backs as R. W. H. Scott and D. B. Clarke, who could gain so much with their line kicks, and why it has had so many outstanding line-out men.