DISAPPOINTMENT

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31519, 6 November 1967, Page 21

DISAPPOINTMENT

The first international on the All Blacks’ tour is over, and no matter how one viewed the result, those enthusiasts who sat up to listen to the broadcast are bound to be disappointed. New Zealanders are creatures of habit, and with their racing, as well as their Rugby commentaries, they like to hear the familiar phrase to be assured that they are not being required to think. At Addington and Riccarton. it has to be bowling along in front or making its own rules out in front or flying on the outside before the listener really feels at home. And so it is with Rugby.

The 8.8. C. rather let us down. Where were all those deathless phrases with which we are all so familiar, and which bring the picture so vividly to mind? What happened to the Eastern touch, that suggestion of Oriental mystery which takes Rugby out of its muck and maul? No backsheesh? Was even one player well wrapped up? History has it that the famous hard-working Native team of 1888 played the second half of a match in its overcoats because of the cold. Has the climate changed so much? And if we missed the Eastern touch, there was even less reference to the Western touch, with its sugges-

tion of * late-comer (9.55 p.m. these days) with empty glass thrust forward. Was there a player who tried to carve his way through, a lovely expression which recalls the Middlesex cricket sweater (three scimitars) and the umpire who, with such a garment thrown at him, accompanied by a rude request, said: “What, swords and all?" It seemed to us that there was not a single furious ruck, hardly anyone poured through, the ball seldom seemed in the air and the only people taken to the ground were Old Blues of ’92 who did not trust their wheelchairs in the traffic.