FIRST RUGBY TEST

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 127, 25 November 1935, Page 10

FIRST RUGBY TEST

New Zealanders will be well pleased with the victory of their representative Rugby side in the first Test match against Scotland for thirty years, played on Saturday. For a considerable period in the early part of the present tour there was just a little doubt as to whether the team would be good enough to uphold the reputation of • its predecessors, and critics, not only in Britain but out here also, were inclined to be disparaging in their views. At the time we held the opinion, shared by many old followers of football, that the main cause of the comparatively poor showing was that the New >Zealanders had been compelled to give up their traditional game and had not yet adapted themselves to the English, style of play, particularly in die scrums. In personnel the side was up to the New Zealand standard, and once it found its feet would give a good account of itself. This view has turned out to be correct. The English critics, who after one match described the New Zealanders as playing like "elderly gentlemen" are now constrained to admit that against Scotland at Murrayfield they "proved that they are a really good all-round side, comparable to any that the Dominion has produced," while vthe message adds that "the critics who declared that the team wpuld not rise to great heights must now eat their words." The match appears to have been a thoroughly'exhilarating and enjoyable exhibition of the great game of Rugby, in which the winners, perhaps, had rather die better of the luck, but in which the losers put up a gallant fight, and maintained the honour of Scotland on the football field. No better result could have been desired. . .