CHARGES OF OBSTRUCTION

Hawera Star, Volume L, 26 August 1930, Page 8

CHARGES OF OBSTRUCTION

BRITISH RUGBY STYLE. CRITICISM OF PLAY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 25. An explanation was made by Mr W. Hornig at the annual smoke concert of the Petuno Rugby Football Club on Saturday evening of the “obstruction tactics” of the British Rugby team in its matches in New Zealand. Mr Horuig was lately a member of the Management Committee of the N.Z.R.U. and manager of the All Black team which toured South Africa, Referring to the fact that the tour of the British team had been a great success and that the visiting team had played a. standard of football that could well be imitated l>y clubs, he said: — “We have, seen and heard a lot. about tactics. I would like to make an explanation. I saw the first match the British team played in the Dominion, against Wanganui, and I thought it was obstructing in a way that was rather foreign to us. “After seeing the team play two other games I was a. bit. dubious. After the third game I was talking to a friend who had seen Rugby played in England, Scotland, Ireland and France, and he told me the thing that, struck him at Home was the amount of obstruction going on. “Another man, after the first Test, who had ,iust returned from Home, said he saw the obstruction referred to. I came to the conclusion then, and I am certain, that any obstruction by the British team was not deliberate, but was their ordinary style of game. We considered it was unfair; they did not. They considered our wing-forward illegal; we did. not.” “After all,” concluded ‘Mr Hornig. “why should we get hot under the collar about all these arguments on tactics. It’s only a game after all.”