RUGBY TRIALS

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 168, 17 July 1937, Page 11

RUGBY TRIALS

“FLASH-IN-PAN” TENDENCIES

THE OPINIONS OF A. E. COOKE

In the weekly journal The Observer (Auckland), Bert Cooke, one of the greatest Rugby players the world has known, has something definite to say about New Zealand Rugby selection methods. Although his criticism was written in 1936 it has a strong application at present when the system of trial matches is in progress in Wellington. There is something wrong with the New Zealand selection methods for these overseas trips when of the 29 chosen for the major tours, or 23 for the Australian trips, it is almost invariably the case that there is a bare test 15 available, the others being either colts or “flash in the pan”

players who could not be included in a test team without seriously reducing its strength. Cooke writes. I think the 1935 All Blacks certainly illustrated this, and so did the team in South Africa. The remedy

is that the selectors should study form over a longer period and in my opinion they should start at the beginning, which is the club match. There is an idea that any “mug” can play well in a club match, but believe me if a man is consistently brilliant in club matches then he has the right stuff in him. If on top of this he shows similar form in interprovincial matches then I would put a “tick” against his name, and 1 would rather base my team on observations of this sort than on all your trial matches. Everyone of us who played big football for any long period and had experience of post-war trial matches knows a number of players whose international prospects were damned before the trial match over started because. with the thought of what was at stake, the whole ambition of their Rugby career, they were almost too nervous to hold a ball. Lou Hook was a first-class example of this. For years playing for the Ponsonby team in Auckland and in the Auckland reps, he stamped himself as a brilliant constructive player with everything it takes to make an All Black threequarter. Admittedly he eventually got in'o an All Black tram for Australia, but he should never have been left out of the 1925 team to South Africa, much inferior men in hi 3 position being taken. The fact v.as that in the trials he was just about paralysed with nerves, and the fear lest he should do something wrong prevented him from any chance of showing his natural stylish game. I know this because I played alongside him in one of the trials. Clinton Stringfellow was in my opinion another exceedingly unlucky player. He was one of the reserves chosen for the South African tour, and I can never understand why the

*c! factors did not pick him instead of Carleton when I dropped put. Stringfellow was a fast, dashing centre with good hands, lots of pace, and good defence. Carleton was a good average type of player, but in my opinion not the equal of Stringfellow.

What most players dread after they have been chosen for a big tour is an accident before the time of sailing, and it is the custom to take no risks in this period, Cooke says in the same article. This is only natural. Wherever possible one tries to play opposite someone who is also going on the tour, and by private arrangement there is no unduly severe tackl ling. | I have known many forwards who arranged to play opposite each other in line-outs after being both selected : for an overseas tour, and It is good | fun for the onlooker who is in the 'joke to see them trying to give on impression of being serious. Charlie Fletcher, who was chosen as a member of the team which toured Australia in 1922, captained by “Moke” Beilis, had the bad luck to break his ankle in a match against Manawatu prior to sailing. A moeti ing of the team was held and all were unanimous that Charlie should 'go -with the party, and he did—on i crutches. I I always think it Is unfair to members of a touring team to play matches before leaving New Zealand, as they cannot be expected to give of their best. Touching again on selecting methods, I am convinced that teams representative of New’ Zealand's true strength will never be got together for overseas tours while the present method of conducting a*series of trial matches, one on top of the other, is in vogue. The result in every such case is to pass over men who have been playing good consistent football, while men who manage to rise to the occasion, or catch the selectors’ eyes, or have a few “lucky breaks,” are selected. In my period of active football every touring side —1924, 1928, and 1935—has had to “carry” a certain number of players who were not up to the standard of the rest of the party, just because of this, while men who could be relied upon to play sound football whenever called upon were left behind. I do not wish it to be thought that I am casting reflections on any particular player. No player who gets into an International team can be devoid of merit. At the same time there is something wrong with a player who was going as well as Jack McNab was in 1924 can be left behind. From what I knew of him then, and from what I saw of him later, he was equal to the best forwards in the country, and certainly if I were picking New Zealand’s best fifteen at that period he would “fly in.” Yet he was passed over, perhaps because parochial con-

siderations entered into the matter, cr perhaps because some forwards of less merit had forced themselves under notice in the trials. I have been asked to name the greatest players during the time I was playing and pick a team from them. I have decided to confine these to the period when I was actually plaving Rugby Union football, as since then I naturally have not seen so much of them, though I have follower performances closely. My team is as follows: Full-back: George Nepia. Threequarters: F. W. Lucas, J. M. Blake (Hawke’s Bay), K. S. Svenson. Five-eighths: M. Nicholls (second), K. Ifwerson (first). Half-back: J. Mill. Front-row Forwards: W. Irvine, Q. Donald. Lock: lan Harvey. Second Row: Maurice Brownlie, I. Finlayson. Back Row: “Son” White, J. McNab. Wing-forward: C. G. Porter.

I choose Porter on his form under New Zealand conditions, not in England where he had to give way to Parker. My “certainties” in the above team would be Nepia, Svenson, Mill, Irvine, Donald, McNab and Maurice Brownlie. These admit of no argument. They stand out as the best players in their positions I have ever known.

With two exceptions my team consists of members of the 1924 All Blacks or of the great Hawke’s Bay side. That is only natural. Those were the best teams I ever played in, and I believe they were the world's, 1 champion Rugby teams of their time, if not actually the two finest teams of all time.