BACK FROM JAPAN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 91, 17 March 1936, Page 8

BACK FROM JAPAN

’VARSITY RUGBY TEAM. Pei- Press Association. WELLINGTON, March 16. Seventeen of the New Zealand University Rugby players, with the manager, Mr P. Martin Smith, and Mr A. McPhail (Canterbury), who travelled with the team, arrived by the Makura from Sydney this morning. Fifty or more pyjama-clad students from the Weir Hostel welcomed the arrivals in student fashion. Interviewed, Mr Martin Smith spoke enthusiastically of the type of football played in Japan, and also the hospitality showered upon them. “They play a very good type of football and' they are exceedingly well trained and disciplined. Their team work is excellent, but they lack individual initiative somewhat. They play like a machine,” he said. Also, they were very keen to learn, as in other spheres, and the result was that towards the end of the tour it was notiecable that improved form was being displayed by them. They played delightful football in the final Test. They played the 3-2-2 scrum, an extra man being used, sometimes as rover and sometimes as extra threequarter, called seven-eighth and played usually lialf-wav between the threequarters and the full-back. The New Zealanders had to fall back on the 2-3-2 formation. He was personally satisfied that the 3-4-1 and 3-2-2 formation were “no good.” Difficulty had been experienced by the New Zealand forwards in the scrum due largely to the fact that their opponents, * being small and nuggetv, packed lower, and the New Zealanders’ weight was rendered ineffective. A feature of the Japanese game was their passing, which was done at a great pace, “They pass and pass until the man is free, and then ho goes through. There is very little real effort to beat a man, although in the final Test they were coming through quite a bit. The New Zealand team took a while to settle down; the ground had no turf, and in Japan a particularly, cold winter had been experienced.” Hudson, from Canterbury College, had stayed behind to- pursue studies in structural engineering, with special reference to earthquake . resisting construction. At a farewell dinner on the eve of the team’s departure eulogistic references were made by the Japanese officials to tho football played by the New Zealanders. Members of the team had formed many deep friendships with the Japanese with whom they had come into contact and had found, the Japanese people gracious, hospitable, and kindly hosts.