AUSTRALIAN RUGBY UNION TEAM

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 173, 25 July 1939, Page 10

AUSTRALIAN RUGBY UNION TEAM

PENDING TOUR OF ENGLAND THIRD ONE FOR AN ALLAUSTRALIAN SIDE. The 1939 tour will mark the third occasion on which an Australian Rugby side has made the journey to England. The first pilgrimage to the Homeland was that of the Wallabies in 1908-9, when 31 games were played, the Australians winning 25, losing 5 and drawing 1. Honours in the Tests were divided, the Australians winning against England by nine points to three, but losing to Wales, as the original All Blacks had done three years before. Wales won by nine to three.

After this inaugural tour Australian Rugby teams, though they made periodical trans-Tasman journeys to New Zealand, did not revisit England for 20 years. In 1927-28 the second team left Australian shores for England. This combination was one of the teams which have been written into Australian Rugby annals as "great." Including such famous internationals as Dr. A. W. Ross, one of the most brilliant full-backs the game has seen, and the flying three-quarter, T. S. Lawton, whose speed and eiusiveness many New Zealand markers knew only too well, this team was widely acclaimed in Great Britain. It played five Tests, winning three—against Ireland (5—3), Wales (18—8) and France (11—8)—and losing two against Scotland (8—10) and England (11—18). If this present combination can play the delightfully enterprising football of its predecessor in 1927 it will win the approval of English crowds. That does not, however, complete the record of flashings between British and Australian fifteens. Three times teams from the British Isles have met Australian combinations on their own soil.' Even with the advantage of their own crowds and their own grounds, the Australians have been unable to equal the record of their opponents. In Australia, eight games have been played—four in 1899, three in 1904, one in 1930—and Australia has won only two—one in 1899 and one In 1930.