THE ALL BLACKS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 12, 9 October 1928, Page 17

THE ALL BLACKS

DUE HOME THIS AFTERNOON

Th. New Zealand Rugby football team will return from their tour of South Africa by the Maheuo this afternoon, and arrangements have been made to give them a hearty welcome.

The Maheno is due to berth at 3 o'clock, and U civic reception will be tendered the team by the Mayor (Mr. G. A. Troup) at the Town Hall at 5 o'clock, following Which the New Zealand Rugby Union will entertain the tourists at a dinner at the Grand Hotel at 6.15 p.tm

THE ALL BLACKS' TOUR. (To the Editor.) .

Sir, —The tour of the All Blacks is drawing to a close, and they will reach home nearly as soon as this gets to New Zealand. As to their exploits on the field of play, frankly they have been disappointing, especially to those many Britishers in this country who hoped that your men would show the anti-British people in this Country—and they are far more numerous than is imagined abroad —that the Empire is not yet entirely cffetOi That the abilities of the All Blacks are not as high as was expected is a pity, although perhaps unavoidable. It is not so much in this respect, however, that one regrets things. It is the generally believed idea that the inner side of the tour has not worked smoothly, or if it has, people ask why has M. Nicholls been sedulously overlooked. He has not been unfit; he is a better man than either Strang or Johnson, yet he has not appeared in any of the Tests so far, nor in the other more serious games, such as those against Pretoria, against Transvaal. or versus Western Province. I have seen two Tests and three other games, and with numbers of others who also saw the same tussles, am fully convinced that the first and third Tests were lost because Nicholls was not playing. . One must concede that the South Africans know how to “play the game”; they play hard, but they do play straight, and it is a grief to Us that the sane cannot be said of some of your men—not the majority.—l am, etc., T. SIMS. Pretoria, August 23.

[Some caustic personal references of the writer in an effort to show why the All Blacks were (as he alleges) an unpopular side in Africa, have been deleted.]