MR ALLEN HAS HIS SAY

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32313, 3 June 1970, Page 15

MR ALLEN HAS HIS SAY

“Fred Allen On Rugby,” by Fred Allen and Terry McLean. Cassell, 242 pp. 54.70.

The great many followers of New Zealand’s national game will be disappointed if they expect to find a “magic” formula for winning Rugby in this memorable first effort by the former All Black coach, Mr F. R. Allen.

Mr Alien's book, written in collaboration with New Zealand’s most prolific Rugby writer, Mr T. P. McLean, is predominantly a guide to coaches rather than an autobiography. Having coached the Auckland provincial team to its record number of Ranfurly Shield successes and then the unbeaten All Black sides of 1966-68. Mr Allen

might have written about bow he planned his teams' victories or divulged .some hitherto unknown method for transforming mediocrity into brilliance. . Instead, he shows that there is no instant formula to success, but infers that good. attacking 15-man Rugby is very often winning Rugby. Without becoming involved in excessive technicalities, he expounds what he believes to be the best methods of attaining the skills needed for such Rugby. He has not dedicated the book to the teams which won great fame, but to “the Gentlemen of Rugby of all grades and ages, who form the backbone of the game because they are the triers.”

A large amount of the book is devoted to the fundamental arts of the game: fitness, running, passing, kicking, tackling and the essentials of forward and back play. The breezy manner in which these are described, and the accompanying action photographs and recollections from actual matches, gives this section far more appeal to the casual reader than most of the coaching manuals that have preceded it. Mr Alien’s use of the great players of the game, such as C. E. Meads, J. L. Gainsford, J. B. Smith, R. W. H. Scott, J. Mathews and H. S. V. Muller, as examples, gives added authenticity, while the opinions of men such as C. K. Saxton, with whom Mr Allen was closely associated in the 1945-46 Kiwis and the 1967 All Blacks, M. G. Halberg and A. L. Lydiard, blend well with his own philosphy of life and football. While the entire book has a message for all coaches, perhaps the first chapter, in which Mr Allen analyses the psychological aspects of Rugby and its coaching, is of greatest value for some readers. This is concerned with the high ‘Cs’ of Rugby: the building of confidence, courage (or the conquest of fear, which Mr Allen believes is present to some degree in all players) and concentration.

Mr Allen says that a team must begin to tear its way “through the complexities of Rugby down to the simplicities,” thereby generating “momentum". This he defines as “a high average level of speed in a team, when ‘speed’ does not mean pseed of foot, but ... all the movements of body and thought which in the firstclass player and the firstclass team, fuse into a sustained application of physical energy and mental vigour.”

Mr Allen’s knowledge should be of great benefit

to the British enthusiast, for whom much of the book has been obviously designed, especially the intricacies of forward play. But conversely, New Zealand players and coaches can learn much from Mr Allen’s expertise concerning the backs.

“I certainly hope it will not be longer than those five years (as he estimated) before New Zealand backs at all levels are once again given a fare share of the sun. I hope, too, that moves among coaches for self-expression in back-play will turn into a flowing tide in New Zealand within two seasons.”

Minor flaws in what is over all an excellent book are the absence of diagrams; the use of some interesting but nevertheless outdated examples (“Hennie Mullerism”); and the occasional “appearance” of Mr McLean when be discusses the 1966 Lions captain, M. J. Camp-bell-Lamberton, and aspects of the 1954-54 and 1963-64 All Black tours of the British Isles, of which Mr Allen had no part.