Three-Fold Menace In All Blacks Game With Wales

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 71, 17 December 1935, Page 14

Three-Fold Menace In All Blacks Game With Wales

(By I

H. PIKERE,)

dangers will confront the AU Blacks in their match on Saturday with "Wales —the ferocity of the Welsh forwards, the cleverness of the "Welsh backs, and the fervour of the Welsh crowd. Of the three the last is perhaps the most potent. Only those who have experienced it can appreciate the extraordinary enthusiasm from the barrackers which casts such an electric atmosphere over important matches in Wales. For days before the people think and talk of nothing else but the match; hours before the kick-off they are in their places on the ground; with bands leading they sing in unison their rousing national songs till the whole vast crowd is almost frenzied with excitement; with a roar they welcome the visiting team, but its reception is nothing to the sky-splitting thunder of cheering that greets the home team; there is respectful silence while cheers are exchanged, and then the great throng breaks again into its impressive and almost frightening singing. And all through the game the spectators are yelling madly, wildly cheering their own men, seizing on every little incident as excuse for vocal demonstration, cheering on their side and shouting down the opposition, Welsh crow’ds are not necessarily unfair, but they are wildly demonstrative for their own men, and the feeling a stranger gets is that he is playing his opponents and the crowd as well. Sustained support of this kind from the sidelines is quite likely to make a team play like men possessed—and it is just as likely to put opponents clean out of their stride. Mark Nicholls 4 , out of the wealth of his long experience both at home and abroad, says New Zealand teams play better before hostile crowds than before their own supporters in New Zealand. He should know, but it cannot ■ be denied that the crowd is always as good as another player in a match against Wales. Record of Wales. Wales has a better record in international matches with visiting teams than any team in the British Isles. Wales beat the New Zealand Maoris in 1888, 5-0, downed the 1905 All Blacks, 3-0, and

beat the 190 S Wallabies, 9-6. The 1906 Springboks beat Wales 11-0, and the 1912 Springboks, 3-0. Wales, in post-war times, has felt the pinch of industrial depression and social unrest, and only occasionally have the largely artisan teams of that country revealed the traditional capacity to rise to a great occasion. England, for . instance, has beaten Wales nine times since 1919, including four times in Wales. The 1924 AU Blacks beat Wales 19-0, the 1927 Warn tabs, 18-8, and the 1931 Springboks, 8-3. Wales has shown in recent years some signs of recovering former greatness. Wales drew with England last season and beat Scotland, 10-6, losing 9-3 to Ireland at Belfast. There have been definite signs of a return to the old style of fast forward play with quick spoiling on to opponents and ready opportunism in the loose, and pronounced signs of real capacity in the back line, largely through the introduction of promising young players from Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Last season there was a partial failure in the forward play, induced by over-eagerness to break up and spoil, but the back play was marked by originality and skill. Vigour in Forwards. The All Blacks have already had more than one sample of the energy of forward play in Wales, and from the selection announced for Saturday, it cannot be presumed that the match will be a parlour game. In T. Rees (Newport), and T. Williams (Cross Keys), the Welsh pack has forwards who stand 6ft. and scale 14st., and A. M. Rees (London Welsh), J. I. B. Lang (Llanelly), and G. Prosser (Neath), are big and strong packmen. D. Tarr (Swansea), is a fine hooker, who has already had' three games against the All Blacks, including the one for Swansea, when he secured possession almost when he liked. It remains to be seen if he will enjoy the same success if weight is given to W. E, Hadley on Saturday. . , , , - Prosser, who played in the back row for Wales the season before last, is a wingforward of the fast spoiling type. Generally, the tendency in Wales at present is to pick forwards with pace and dash, rather than with weight alone, and the wisdom of this policy seems to be borne out by the success of some of the club packs against the All Blacks. The “Daily Mail” doubts whether the Welsh pack will be strong enough to. hold the New Zealanders. Supremacy of forwards almost invariably wins international matches. The most brilliant back line in the world is of little use behind beaten forwards. Fine Backs; The Welsh team undoubtedly has fine backs. H. Tanner, the schoolboy halfback from Swansea, has been included in place of the veteran W. C. Powell, who played last year, and both by his physique and skill, should give his team good service in both attack and defence. C. W. Jones, the Cambridge University will-o’-the-wisp, has been included in preference to W. T. Davies, the other brilliant Swansea schoolboy. Jones, though rather frail, has great pace off the mark, and a wonderful eye for a gap. He was regarded last season as the best inside back in the British Isles, superior even to R. W. Shaw, of Scotland. The Welsh three-quarter line has two fine wings in W. Woolier, the big and fast man from Cambridge University, and G. R. Rees-Jones, of Oxford University. Woolier is 6ft. and only 22, and has a great scoring record. Rees-Jones is als*o a strong runner and did well last season against England and Scotland. E. C. Davey, of Swansea, played brilliantly against the All Blacks on the occasion of their only defeat,. and is undoubtedly a fine centre, with all the shrewdness and generalship of six seasons in international football. He is, iu faet, the Charlie Oliver of Wales. J. Idwal Rees, the centre, is a former Cambridge University man who has since played for Edinburgh Wanderers, he being a master at Fcttes College, He is also big and fast. A. Bassett, brother of James Bassett, the full-back of the 1930 British team in New Zealand, has been dropped from the three-quarter line. V. G. J. Jenkins (London Welsh) has been preferred as full-back to T. O. James (Aberavon) who played for Wales last season against Ireland. This back line has whips of pace and is a dangerous attacking force. It is probably the best on paper that the tourists have encountered. Trial Games Played. The "Welsh selectors believe in doing their work thoroughly and had trial games before picking the team to meet New Zealand. In the first of these, in which the Probables beat the Possibles 31-8, T. O. James, who has been omitted from the

full-back position, converted five of six tries and kicked a penalty goal. Some comments on the play included the folloying: “Tanner was quite easily the best player on the field. His value may be estimated from the fact that after he left the field, a few minutes after halftime, bis side scored no more points. “Davies set hie three-quarters going with splendid rhythm, and once or twice slipped through the defence in that effortless way of his, but his own defence was very shaky, and clearly he has not the resource and all-round ability of his rival, Jones. “Davey played his usual strong.defensive and attacking game. Occasionally his handling and passing.were at fault, but they were small blemishes compared with the all-round utility of his game. “The Probables pack were an almost unqualified success. They looked compact and solid in the scrums, heeled quickly, and were far livelier in the.loose than the much heavier Possibles forwards. The wing-forwards, too, were good, apart from an unfortunate tendency to get in front of the ball when backing up their threequarters.” The Probables pack included five of the men chosen to play for Wales on Saturday. Previous Matches. In 1905 Wales beat the All Blacks, 3-0 at the tail end of the tour—the only defeat suffered by “The Originals.” The manner of it has caused endless argument, it being claimed that R. G. Deans, the Canterbury three-quarter, scored a try after a run by W. J. Wallace, of Wellington, but was pulled back over the goal line, before the referee gave his decision, by some of the Welshmen. This happening has been revived from time to time, even to the extent of being