NEW ZEALAND RUGBY

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 44, 22 February 1936, Page 9

NEW ZEALAND RUGBY

STANDARD FALLING AWAY OBSERVATIONS PROM AUSTRALIA There has been a good deal of comment in Australia amd wherever Rugby is played on the assertion that the standard of the game in this country is falling away. A correspondent, in Everard Rosenblum, of Bond Street, Sydney has this to say in a letter to tho Referee: “I read with interest the statements made by Cliff Porter, published in the Refereee of January 30 last, as to the standard of New Zealand, football. ‘ ‘ Cliff Porter is right when he notices the deterioration in tho standard of New Zealand Rugby. I doubt, however, if the changed scrum formation has anything to do with it. The abolition of the 2—3—2 scum will eventually help to restore the standard. “The deterioration was apparent even as far back as 1928. The New South Wales touring side of that year found that the average back line was of very poor standard, and subsequent New Zealand teams have all shown a real deficiency in back play. The fact that New Zealand has always looked to its forwards to win matches, and, consequently directed its backs to this effect, together with the tremendous spoiling tactics of the wing forwards 1 is, in my opinion) the cause of this poor back play. .< >it may take some time, but the abolition of the wing forwards should help to produce backs of the type of A. E. Cook and M. Nicholls. There must, however, be also a change of attitude, so that as much emphasis is placed on back as forward play. When this is done, a scoring back line together with its fine forwards should place New Zealand football on top.” The wing forwards reigned when backs of tho high calibre'of Bred Roberts, W. J. Wallace, George Smith, Dick McGregor, W. J. Stead, the Wynyards, Jimmy Duncan, and J. Hunter, Duncan McGregor, and others were to be seen, and they also reigned in the times of A. E. Cooke and Mark Nicholls, comments the Referee’s writer in repeat to the matters raised in the letter. The highest type of New Zealand wing forward was a constructive player. That is, the impession D. Gallaher and C. Porter have made on the writer. The last breakaway fonyard of the latest N.Z. pack formation, as seen in Australia, is more destructive to back play than true ,win.g forwards ever were. In the last team seen in Sydney the quick-breaking forward often ignored the offside law and gave the half and five-eights of the opposing side a rough spin through the referee not being°as vigilant or as rigid as he should be in such a situation. In the 1905 All Blateks team the backs were, at least, as good relatively as the forwards. To judge New Zealand Rugger strength by what has been seen in Australia within recent years, the falling away is in the forwards as well as in tho backs. However, New Zealand has most of the old Rugby thoroughbreds still Slive, and active, and the Union should have no qualms about inviting their ideas as to the best means of reviving the magic in AH Blacks’ play, back and forward. It can be done, as W. J. Wallace illustrated to Australians a little while back, when he took hold of a team of young ones in the rough, in Sydney, and turned them into a topical New Zealand Combination before the tour had finished. Mr, Rosenblum, I believe, will agree with this, and with the view that the Rugby genius of New Zealand will again make itself felt in a little while.