THE RUGBY GAME.

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 214, 4 June 1924, Page 6

THE RUGBY GAME.

MATCHES AND PLAYERS

NEWS AND NOTES FROM ALL SOURCES

(By

“Five-Eighths.”)

A GREAT RUGBY LEADER

V On the eve of another Rugby crusade . to England, one’s thoughts natural y fly back to the gallant band who made ' the first histone pilgrimage in 1900. That great side contained no more * outstanding personality that Dave Gallagher, its captain. Th© writer spent some months with the famous AU Black captain in Northern France in 1916 and ■’ 1917, and camo to know him very intimately. During rests from fro.ut ~ trench work, the troops,in the summer * of 1917 indulged in athletic games as .il part of their training. Dave, who was " a sergeant in the 3rd Auckland Com- “ pany/waa captain of that company 8 w cricket eleven, while the writer led the X Hauraki eleven. Thus it was m many 5 a pleasant match on clay pitches at bt. Cinge and Kortypipp camps that I came ' to know and respect, the big leader of X-tho original All Blacks. On many a A summer evening, after the cricket ’* matches ‘were ©ver, the two captains S would often repair to a grassy bank, *■ and while the big shells droned over- ' head, and the racket of the front line punctuated our discourse the Hauraki private would coax the Auckland sergeant to talk of the tour of the All Blacks through the British Isles m 1905. Dave Gallagher was one cf nature s gentlemen. There was not a bombastic word in his unassuming recital of the principal battles the New Zealanders had fought on that record-breaking tour Those intimate talks by tno All Black cantain will remain for ever as my most cherished Rugby memories. The recollection is saddened by the knowledge that a great Rugby genpis, a soldier, and a man, ‘ west West at Rasschendaelo in October, 1917. He foil as ho had lived, playing tho game for’his side Ho went down covered with imperishable laurels, hut we will keep his memory green for all time. Peace to the ashes of a great Rugby leader, who bore himself in the days of tho Empire's crucial test rust as faithfully and as gallantly as ho bad done on the Rugby field.

SEASON AT HOME Wo have reached the end of another season, at any rate as far as all the really important matches are concerned, ■ for Easter tours, pleasant as they are, are far too late in the year, especially this season, to be of outstanding.interest writes J. Sellicks, tho wellknown English critic. English Rugby folk, at any rate, can look back on 1923-24 with unmixed pleasure, tor there have been no untoward happenings as far as our Rugby is concerned, while for the second season in succession England won all along the line. One or two of'"the other countries have no reason to. regard the season with unmixed satisfaction. Wales has had a lean time, but is bound to do better another year. All is not peace in the principality, but if the best class of ftugby folk in Wales rally to the flag all will yet be well. Most Englishmen recognise the handicaps under which Wales suffers, and feel considerable sympathy for the rifht sort of people, who do their very utmost for the game in Wales, and redeive scant thanks for their trouble. ’ . , , ... 3 . Scotland began arid ended with disappointment. Both away matches were lost, and the two home fixtures won. The defeat in Paris was perhaps a surprise, but that in London was a catastrophe, and it will not be surprising to find that the principles of selection are altered next season. A good many people in the south could have told 'them that the apparently brilliant Oxford-Colonial three-quarter line was not really sound. One expects Scotland to show an improved record in 1924-25. i The same remark holds good of Ireland, who won two matches and lost . two, hut if defeated were a long way from being disgraced. The Irish side was a young one, full of promise, and possessing a lot of thsit dash and determination in the forwards .which has served the country so well in the past. Moreover, Ireland has now discovered some, very useful halves and three-quarters, who are bound to improve in the next year or two. and who ought to develop plenty of scoring power, the lack of which quality has. so often caused them disasterIreland will not be an outsider for the International Championship by any means. France' has had a troubled season; it began brilliantly with a victory over Scotland, and petered out disappointingly in a defeat from Wales,in Paris. The last game was played under the most appalling conditions, and it may bo questioned whether it afforded any real test of Rugby ability. But France failed to adapt themselves to circumstances. and so did not deserve to win. One is a little' doubtful as to the future of French Rugby, which seems to be getting rather out of hand, but tho authorities deserve all the support they can get. As regards tho play itself, they must alter one or two of their basic principles before they will do any real good. Quito apart from the international games, tho present condition of Rugby in England seems quite satisfactory. Some of tho big clubs have rather in and out records, but that is bv no means entirely a bad sign; it shows that other organisations are coming along, and it is good for the honours tn go round. It can also be said that the standard of play is now better than it has been since the war, at. any rate in London, and the game is usually played at a faster pace and in more lively fashion than it was a few years ago.

Following is an extract from a letter from Mr. T. 11. Bosward, of the New South Wales Rugby team which toured Now Zealand last year:—“lt is our jubilee year —1874-1924, and still going strong, and we arq counting on the second All Blacks visiting us prior to their departure for the ‘Old. Dart.’ There will be a big public welcome in the Sydney Town Hall on tho evening after their arrival, when over 3000 footballers and friends will assemble to honour the visitors as they did the originals headed by Dave Gallagher.” “If 11. E. Nicholls fails to land a position in tho All Black team, half Wellington will scream with rage and the other half will grin (remarks the Christchurch “Star”). The ‘ayes’ say ‘Ginger’ is a Rugby genius. Tho noes’ say otherwise. The truth appears to be that he’s a fair to medium player, sometimes up to interprovincial rank.” Mark Nicholls has rather a habit of oliining in trial games,: but his performances in Test games have been most disappointing, says a Hastings critic. ll© has been given opportunities galore, but with tho possible exception of one game he has never justided his selection.

THE JUNIOR GRADE

GENERAL NEWS All matches in the junior grade will be resumed to-day If utilised in the right way, the spell should not have done any great harm. Junior players have hdd splendid opportunities of seein" the elect of New Zealand s players in action, and if they have been observant they should have noted much. The forwards could well take a lesson from the way the South Island vanguard packed round to check rushes on numerous occasions last Saturday. The men all joined round in a circle, and tliis always had the desired effect. The forwards will probably have learnt also that the duties of a good forward do not rest in forming part of a. scrum: in taking part in a line-out and a rush. A good forward is always prepared to support his backs. 'Jake the performances of Porter, Maurice Brownlee, and Richardson for an instance. , ~ r ~ , Coming kickers should note that a good kicker does not make elaborate preparation, and before kicking look in front of the ball to see if there is any hindering grass in the way. Take as an instance Nepia, the Hawke’s Bay player and All Black fill - back. He makes powerful kicking look easy because he kicks with ease, and without elaboration. Budding three-quarters should have learned a lesson from Hart. I have seen junior tlirce-quarters get the ball, and stand hesitatingly, frightened to run because no one of their side was within passing range. Hart demonstrates the fact clearly' than is is the duty of a three-quarter to run, and run hard when he receives the ball. Under ordinary circumstances a three-quarter is the last man to receive the ball in a passing rush, and it is ho who is required to finish off - tho movement with a score. ■ A lesson of unselfishness should have been taken from the play of Cooke, the AU Black outside five-eighth. Many junior players seem to think that if they pass a ball out they will not be recognised. But Cooke passed the ball out every time, and he was recognised as the best back on the field last Saturday. Unselfishness is always re. warded in tho end in Rugby. Junior forwards were shown hew not to form a scrum. The scrummaging was exceedingly bad. Junior forwards should take the hint never to push before the other pack is properly down. The North and South packs made this mistake, with the result, on one occasion, that by the time the ball was ready to go in the North pack was pushing iu, tho wrong direction. Junior wingers, of course, cannot be expected to adopt tho tactics of the winger Lucas with the same success. Lucas is a hrainy wing- threequarter, and has learned the art o’ side-stepping. He is. an excellent model for the wing game. Junior wing-forwards should not go too much on the play of Porter, at least on his last Saturday’s display. This player altogether overdid off-side tactics, which marred an otherwise excellent display. Following is the junior championship table as it stands at present:—■

Following is a summary of tlie points gained to date by teams in the lower grades:— Third grade: Berhampore 8, Upper Hutt 8, Athletic 8. Oriental 6, Pet one 6. Technical Old Boys A 6, Wellesley College 4, Old Boys A 4, Selwyn 3, Wellington College 2, Karori 2, Marist 2, St.- Patrick’s College 2, Technical Old Boys B 2, Wellington 2, I’oneke 2, Porirua 2, Training College B 2, Hutt 0, University 0, Old Boys B 0, Training College AO. ij Fourth grade: Wellington A 10, Petone 6, Old Boys 6, Oriental A 6, Hutt 6, Taita 6, Berhampore 4, Poneke 4, Athletic 4, Wellington College 2, Marist 2, Eastbourne 2, Johnsonville 2, Institute 2, Kaiwarra 2, Wellington B 2, Oriental B 0, Selwyn 0. Intermediate grade: Berhampore 8, Kaiwarra 8, Taita 8, Eastbourne 7, Upper Hutt 7, Poneke 4, Petone 4, Johnsonville 4, Scots College 2, Marist 2, Wellington A 2, Stop Out A 2, Stop Out B 2, Oriental 2, Athletic 0, Wellington B 0, Selwyn 0, Community 0. Fifth grade: Petone A 8, Petone B 8, Oriental 8, Poneke 6, Athletic 5, Old Boys 5, Wellesley College 4. Institute 4, Technical College 3, Wellington 3, Wellington College A’ 2, Upper Hutt 2, St. Patrick’s College 1, Wellington College B 1, Berhampore 0, Hutt 0, Selwyn 0, Marist 0, Wellington College C 0.

Sixth grade: St. Patrick’s College A 6, Hutt 6, Athletic 5, Wellington College A 4, Wellington College B 4, Petone 4, Marist 4, Technical College 3, Selwyn 3, Berhampore 3, St. Patrick’s College B 2, Poneke 0. Scots College 2, Wellington 0, Wellington Colege C —, Welling ton College D —. Seventh grade: Petone 6, Technical College 6, St. Patrick’s College A 6, Institute 4, Berhamnore 2, Scots College 2, Wellington College A 2, Wellington College B 2, Eastbourne 2, St Patrick’s College B 2, Marist 0, Sc-lwyn 0, Wellington College C —; Wellington College D —.

A Hawke’s Bay paper has tho following to say:—“The Wellington papers’ boosting of Wellington players is a little overdone, and it is clamouring at present for a further trial for the elderly Moffitt, who never was a champion, and whoso best days have long since departed. Tho Oxford eight was not only beaten by Cambridge,'but outrowed as well. Its members collapsed instantly upon crossing the finish line. Mallam in the bow was violently ill, and Mellon, the American stroke, fell over his oar unconscious. The coxswain partially revived Mellon by throwing water over him, but for fully five minutes the Oxford shell floated’ along on a i‘d>t tide, the eight oarsmen obviously outrowed and none of them able to sit np. Ort the other hand, the Cambridge crew, which outweighed Oxford by an average of 151 b. a man, finished superbly, and after a five minutes’ wait dashed off to the boathouse in perfect style.

NORTH V. SOUTH A RECORD VICTORY FAILURE OF INSIDE BACKS

Remarkable as it may seem the South Island forwards, although conceding six pounds a man in weight to their opponents, got the ball f ro ™ the scrummage more than the North in last Saturday’s match. V hen they heeled it, however, St. George, McGregor, aud Perry could not do anything with it, beyond letting it get into the hands of the North backs.

The supporters of Perry and St. George get tired of apologising for them. An inside back combination was offering that would have hustled the North throughout tho game 1 , but ■the selectors thought otherwise. Examining tho actual scores, io see how many individuals were responsible for the wreck of,South’s hopes, it is found that Nepia scored 17 points from goal-kicking. Hart 9 from tries and 4 from a field goal, Brownlie 6 from tries, and McNab 3 irom a try. White gave two samples of dribbling that showed he had perfect control of the ball. Everything one had read in the book of Scott, tho famous Scottish international, on dribbling, was there, even to the successful cupping of the ball on ’the inside of the inSt< Stecl hurt his shoulder in tho first spell, and was practically useless afterwards. Richardson played as a man possessed. He stated afterwards that ho got a knock on the head and did not remember any more until the end of the first spell. Yet he seemed to have the knack of thrilling the crowd bv his persistent following, breaking awav, and tackling. Opinions differ, but it is easy to place M. ’Brownlie first among the three forwards named, with a slight advantage over the two Southerners. Nepia must rank among the best full-backs, after his dual performance He proved on Saturday that lie had the pluck required to go down on a rush by heavy forwards: on three distinct occasions ho got th© success lie deserved from this means of defence. There was international quality in Hie opportunism of Cooke and Eneas. Tlie best that one can say of the South backs was that they never got a chance from their insides, and that the plav of .all of them was too bad to bo true. TKo South Island, as a team, lot their admirens down, good and hard! They drew last year. They won the year before. In the year before the war tho South won bv 25 to nil. There was only one better record than that —when Hunter led the North to victory. to tho tune of 26 to nil, at Wellington, nineteen years ago. On Saturday tho South went down by 39 to 8. That is the cold fact. Plavers who leaped into fame overnight, as it were, in the South Island trials, could not find their game. The only ones that stood nn .+<’ — and stood it well—were the w-i"*"’ nationals, the old firm of Richardson aud White. . . The South’s name was on thousands of tongues, as White, Southland’s international, executed a perfect dribble that gained half the length ,ot the field, waking the first threatening effort of the game. His provincial colleague, Richardson, smothered the North wing-forward, took the ball from him, like a toy from a petulant child, and placed the Southerners in a position to strike at tho goal-line. Then a Southern back sent out a rotten pass, that was quidkly intercepted, and the tidal wave from the South broke, like the spent breaker. The North dashed in; the greatest forward in New' Zealand to-day, Maurice Brownlie, of Hawke’s Bay. introduced pyrotechnics; tho wave became a backwash, and the North, inexorably pursuing their opponents, loped across their line, with the defence, rattled ai/L frazzled, looking on. Multiply that half a dozen times, throw in goals kicked from the field, and as a result of penalties, and you have the story of the North v. South contest of 1924. , . , There is no pleasure in dwelling on a tragedy.

A RUDE AWAKENING Some little time back a South Island writer waxed rather sarcastic at tho expense of the big North Island forwards. whom ho dubbed ‘ slow-moving mastodons,” and forecasted that the lighter and faster-moving South Island vanguard would run the big, lumbering northerners off their feet when the trial of strength took place between the two islands. This writer, and a good many others, who laboured under a similar delusion, must have received a rude awakening on Saturday afternoon at Athletic Park. The virtue about the big men in the North Island team—C. Brownlie (lost.), Harvey (14st. 81b.), and M. Brownlie (13st. 131b.)—is that they have pace, and in the loose can get up quite a good turn of speed. The North Island owed its sweeping victory to the fact that their forward's worked much better together than did the opposing pack. That the South Island did not overlook the value of weight was evident from the presence of Richardson (14st. 51b.), Masters (14et.), and Stewart (14st.). Richardson and Stewart, though tw’O of tho heaviest men in the 'South Island team, proved that they were every bit as fast, if not foster, than any of their lighter comrades. Of course, this excepts Parker, the wing-forward, who is as fast as anv back. New Zealand can congratulate itself upon possessing a wealth of really good forwards at the present time. One weakness revealed itself on Saturday, and that was the ragged scrum work'. Rarely was a really compact .scrum seen, and when the ball was hooked it came dribbling out far too slowly. No doubt this weakness will be rectified on the passage Home, when the players will shake down into position, and persevere until they can shoot the ball out to tho half with celerity. In this connection, it will be interesting to know who will do the tutoring on the trip Home. The 1905 All Blacks contained some wise old Rugby heads, such as'Dave Gallaghet, Jimmy Hunter, and Jimmy Duncan (the coach), who gave the youngei members of the party the benefit of their experience of the game, anil put the final polish upon them. No doubt generals will arise to take command in the present campaign.

o H fl -p a o 55 A fl ci A £ £ w bfl fl V) £ Eastbourne .. 5 5 0 0 82 6 10 Athletic 4 4 0 0 56 16 8 Porirua / 5 4 1 0 68 21 8 Marist 5 4 1 0 81 25 8 Poneke 5 3 1. 1. 51. 29 7 Wellington ... 5 3 2 0 41 26 6 Hutt 5 3 2 0 26 29 6 Berhampore 4 2 1 1 26 13 5 Oriental 5 2 3 0 34 55 4 University B 5 2 3 0 15 90 4 Training Coll. 4 1 2 1 19 23 3 Old Boys ... 4 1 3 0 29 .51 2 Petone <5 1 4 0 29 46 2 University A 5 0 4 1 16 52 1 Johnsonville 4 0 4 0 17 33 0 Selwyn 4 0 4 0 3 78 0