ALL BLACKS IN WALES

Evening Star, Issue 22209, 11 December 1935, Page 4

ALL BLACKS IN WALES

DECISIVE WIN OVER LLANELLY REHABILITATED IN WELSHMEN'S EYES NEWS BY MAIL ' New Zealand Backs Had Great Scoring Power ’ and ‘ Llanelly Forwards’ Great Work Went for Naught’ were the captions of tho * Western Mail ’ (Cardiff) to its account of the match All Blacks v. Llanelly, won by the tourists by 16 points to 8. The New Zealand Rugby tourists of 1936 rehabilitated themselves in the eyes of tho Welsh Rugby community at Llanelly on Tuesday (says this Welsh paper). No longer will they look upon Wales as the inhospitable country they must have thought it when they had their hopes of invincibility shattered at Swansea a month ago. Now they can once more proceed cheerily on their way, happy in the knowledge that Tuesday’s rain and greyness at Strndey wore representative merely of the feelings of the Llanelly camp. Their Llanelly triumph will give them unbounded confidence for their remaining games in Wales. Llanelly made no secret of their expectations of victory. They argued that where Swansea had succeeded they could succeed. Perhaps they were right in that, but the side with which New Zealand tamed Llanelly was a re-: vitalised side—a side, with a purpose in view, a side which had recaptured the will to win, and had the skill requisite for securing victory. Its will and its skill carried it through to the position of honour it sought and' deserved, though it would be paying a

false tribute to assert that it was a side that in any way approached greatness. Here and there, dotted throughout the game, one saw occasional movements' by members of the back division which approached the highest pinnacles of combined excellence, but even they failed to conceal or eliminate the impression that this touring side has a canker -which cannot be removed and which will probably land it in further defeats before its tour ends. LLANELLY’S FINE PACK. Its forwards are not good enough. Llanelly’s pack proved that beyond all possible question. To the members of that pack Llanelly can look with pride. All that a pack can do towards winning a game that pack did. The return of New Zealand’s most famous hooker, Hadley, probably strengthened that side’s scrummaging, but it was not of sufficient value to prevent Bryn Evans from gaining possession at the majority of the scrummages. Lang and Ivor Jones saw to it that the All Blacks had no advantage at the lines-out; when it came to open play generally—well, the Llanelly pack was the only one that really mattered. In starting and carrying . through dribbles the All Blacks had no forward to equal Ivor Jones; in all-round play neither friend nor foe approached Emrys • Evans, and J. L. G. Morgan and W. H. Williams were at least as good as the best men in the New Zealand pack, King and Lambourn. Every man in the Llanelly pack did more than could have been expected of him, and the drilling the tourists’ forwards received in all phases of .forward play was only emphasised when some of the members of the pack—Manchester among them—mad© the mistake _ of seeking for opportunities of ‘‘mixing it” with their opponents. That will never prove a profitable proposition for the All Blacks’ pack in Wales! . From the first minute to the last, with the exception of two periods, which did not aggregate more than a quarter of an hour, Llanelly’s was the winning pack. Thanks to those forwards, Llanelly did even more attacking that did their conquerors. Yet New Zealand were unmistakably the better side, the side carried to a decisive victory on sheer merit. Why? For the all-sufficient reason that scoring power .is invariably denied to forwards and that the New Zealand backs bad the scoring power, the quickness of thought and action, and the ability to play attractive and winning Rugby, DELIGHTFUL CONTRAST. What a delightful contrast they provided to the halting and often misguided manner in which the Llanelly backs handled th§«; chance®! Every

one of the New Zealand backs acted like lightning, irrespective of whether the prize was a possible score or the responsibility of a. tackle, while Llanelly’s half-backs and centres either hesitated until chances were lost, positioned themselves badly for defensive work, or made mistakes which their intuition should have avoided. No well-ordered first-class defence ought to have yielded the New Zealanders their first two tries, and Smith, though playing a useful and hard game generally, showed his inexperience on two occasions when he aimlessly punted high at moments when the New Zealanders’ defence was gaping wide open in front of him. But Smith was far from being the only weak link. Dai John, for example, undid all the good his kicking achieved through being exceptionally uncertain in his handling, and his centres —well, they never seemed to appreciate, that Griffiths and Oliver were always their masters in pace, and repeatedly found the greatest satisfaction in smashing the Llanelly attacks before they became a real menace. On the wings only could Llanelly hold their own with the Now Zealand backs. In those positions there were great duels, with the honours going to Elvet Jones, and with Hart a worthy second. Gwyn Bayliss, too, earned a word of praise, for if his kicking was less lengthy than that of Gilbert it was rather more accurate. In addition, Bayliss saved one certain score with a positively great tackle of Mitchell. MATCH WINNERS. The magnificent players New Zealand had at five-eighths and centre won the game for them. Oliver, as usual, W'as the directing genius, with an uncanny aptitude fox 1 being in threatened positions or where tries were to be had. In actual’play he was overshadowed by Griffiths, who did better work both in attack and defence than any other player, while Caughey was the man who did most towards thrusting wide open any doors that wei’e ajar. He it was who saw the opening three minutes from the start and went straight through under the posts for a try without a hand being placed upon him. But it was the -perfect timing of the passes by Sadler and Griffiths that gave Caughey the chance. Gilbert brought the first half scoring to a close by adding the goal points. When the second half was three minutes old Ivor Jones cheered Llanelly hearts with a fine penalty goal. Their enthusiasm, however, was short-lived, for. Sadler promptly got clean away from a scrummage and ran a dozen yards for another try, again without being touched. Afterwards the New Zealanders showed the Welsh crowd real attacking Rugby and how to score from other folks’ mistakes. Hart was at hand when a pass dropped, and Manchester, Mahoney, and Caughey carried on before Oliver flashed across in the corner for a try which Gilbert goaled. Then Caughey and -Mitchell repeated the delightful performance for Oliver to cross in the other comer with a try. Towards the end came ’ a rather scrambling sort of try for Llanelly by Emrys Davies, Ivor Jones converting.