FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 175, 9 July 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY

OF FIRST INTERNATIONAL RUGBY MATCH. ENGLAND DEFEATS FRANCE. It seeced to have escaped general notice that April 18, 1932, marked the fortieth anniversary of the first international Rugby football match which really justified such a title, states an overseas paper. That was when the Rosslyn Park Club sent a team from London to Paris to play against the Stade Francais.

In those days France was very young in the game, and it was hardly surprising that the Englishmen won by 22 points to 0. The French had a scoring system of their own at this time, and the winning margin, reckoned by this method, was only 12 points. Considering that Rugby football had been plliyed on the Continent for only two or three years, the Frenchmen put up a surprisingly fine resistance to men older, stronger and more skilful than themselves. The teams played nine forwards and three threequarter backs, and the spectators were for the most part rather mystified by the proceedings.

The newspaper accounts of the play were brief, and one writer embodies his

interpretation of the play in one sentence, as follows, “An oval ball, like a

monstrous leather egg, 40 centimeters long, was placed in the middle of the field and moved in various directions subject to a code of CO laws.” An illustration which appeared in the Graphic, a London periodical, shows the play in progress, with the contestants wearing ornamental caps and the touch judge attired in a flowing cloak and a bowler hat. The incident which is depicted by the artist shows lioth teams to be well and truly “offside”—under present-day rules. From this time Rugby football advanced steadily in popularity in France, and, after the war, the competitive aspect became so predominant that the game itself suffered. Thus it was that when France was practically on a par with the British nation in playing skill, the International Board (composed of representatives from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales) felt moved to break all contacts with France until the game there should be cleared of its disagreeable features.