OXFORD VICTORY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22201, 11 December 1946, Page 6

OXFORD VICTORY

INTER-VARSITY RUGBY DONNELLY OUTSTANDING N.Z. STYLE VINDICATED ,10 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 10. Oxford beat Cambridge by 15 points to 5 in an inter-university Rugby Unionmatch at Twickenham this afternoon. The win was Oxford’s twelfth successive victory this season in which the team has scored 275 points against its opponents’ total of 27.

The Oxford team included two New Zealanders. M. P. Donnelly and G. L. Gawkwell. four South Africans, including the captain, Newton-Thompson, and one Australian.

The Cambridge team had one New Zealander, a back, 11. M. Kimberley.

In a Rugby Union match, Oxford beat Cambridge largely because they got most of the ball from the scrum. Their back line adopted the Dominion style of play, using a full back line instead of having left and right centres. The result was that leader and pivot of the Oxford attack, the New Zealander, M. P. Donnelly, was able to make openings for the threequarters who overlapped the defence. Donnelly was the outstanding player in a hard, ragged game. He opened Oxford's score with a field goal from a difficult position while under pressure and paved the way with fine positional play for two of the three tries that followed.

Cambridge’s task was to keep Oxford out and, until their defence broke down in the second half, another New Zealander, Kimberley, was prominent stopping Oxford's many attacking movements.

The New Zealander, Gawkwell, and Australian, Travers, were prominent in the Oxford pack, both big fast forwards, did much to give Oxford a big superiority.

The game as a whole was a vindication of the Dominion's style and methods.