THE WING-FOE WARD

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 20

THE WING-FOE WARD

AN ENGLISH VIEWPOINT

In view of the, English prejudice agaitist the wing-forward, as expressed by Mr. J. Baxter, manager of the 1930 British team, the following article by G. S. Conway in "The Manchester Guardian" is of interest: — "The wing-forward's job in constructive forward play grows naturally I out of good forward play as a whole. Every forward is a potential wing forward, but his position in the serum enables the wing-forward proper to be there both in attack and in defence to put the finishing touches to the combined play of backs and forwards and to be up and about as the 'snapper-

up' of all 'the unconsidored trifles' which are not quite within the domain proper of either forwards or backs. At: the same time the good wing forward should ■be ready at any moment to abandon his skirmishing and join in the heavy artillery battle of the forwards. He is a luxury, an invaluable one certainly, but only to bo afforded by tho pack whic-h has already established sufficient forward superiority to be able to develop the constructive type of game. "The wing-forward is not an undesirable person because he cramps the opposing half-backs and three-quarters and slows up the game; that is essentially his job if he is good enough to do it and if the opposing pack arc poor enough to give him time. The real danger is that the existence of the wing-forward as a specialist entity encourages the rest of the forwards to regard themselves merely as solid scrummagers who arc not called upon, onco the ball is heeled, to take an active part in the subsequent movement provided they are up in reasonably good time for the next scrum. This, to my mind, is tho negation of good forward play. ALL-ROUND PLAY FIRST. "For similar reasons any tendency to specialise in one particular branch of forward play or position in the scrum is thoroughly to bo deprecated for_ a forward who still hns his spurs to win. So much all-round play comes tho way of every forward who is awake to the possibilities of tho forward game that he must be ready to turn his hand to everything. Specialisation iv forward play seems to me, in fact, almost a contradition in terms. Once a for-1 ward is thoroughly familiar with every position in the scrum, ho may then develop his particular aptitude for hooking, or for front, second, Or back row work, but it is a mistake to try to reverse the process. "For a pack of well-trained forwards it is .scarcely open to argument that fixed positions in the scrum will give better results than 'first up, first down' methods, but. for members of school and junior club teams too much attention cannot be paid to all-round I forward training. ' There is a danger that the increasing amount of instructional and other literature which the popularity of the game has brought into being and the intensive coaching of present-day school teams may tend to lay too much emphasis on the detail of forward play at the expense of general principles."