ALL BLACKS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 25 October 1924, Page 4

ALL BLACKS.

THE ’CUMBERLAND MATCH. AND THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL. (By “Spectator.”) If the opponents of the All Blacks to-day play up to their reputation and reproduce their form of last year, they should give the team one of the most strenuous of the contests to date. But the results so far’ have shown an inconsistency with what has been anticipated that it is impossible to say how the Cumberland match will go. The team appeared, up to" the match with Lancashire, to have got into its stride and to 1 be showing an even Standard of high-grade play. Just why the play in Wednesday’s match should have been so scrappy and disjointed -it. is hard to say, but everyone who has been a footballer knows how a team can, when meeting an inferior team, fail to play up to their best, and seem to * be infected with the poor form of the opposing players. It seems probable that none, of the county teams can extend our men. This, ’in view of .the hard struggle ahead next Saturday, with the clever hacks and hefty smashing forwards of the Irish team, is a disadvantage, for play against weak teams :? inclined to rfiake a. team slack. However, that'is one of the points with which the manager and. selectors have - to deal. No doubt they are looking ahead to the 'first international, and will see to it that the' men to be chosen, as well as all the rest, are kept as fit as can be possible. The match to-day should be. a substantial win, and then there should he a week’s spell while preparations are made for the big match. More interest wjll centre round that than has been felt even with the hard contests which took olaee against the redoubtable Welsh teams. ' If these are any criterion of the strength of football ‘in Wales, the match \nn November 29 should be one d the keenest, and, naturally, anticinntions will on that dav he very lively, bocausa that match will be one which New Zealand will be out to win perilous more than any other. 'The result' of to-dav’s match will he awaited with much ; nte-est. and that of next. Saturday will he much more, became of its belnrr the first try-out against internationals. ,