A NEW ALL BLACK TOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18552, 9 November 1923, Page 8

A NEW ALL BLACK TOUR.

The visit of a New Zealand Rugby football team to Britain next year has developed from a possibility to a certainty. Conditions have been accepted, the bargain has been clinched; it now remains for New Zealand to collect the best possible combination of players, and to despatch them in the hope that they will equal or surpass previous records, but with the certainty that they will maintain the traditions of sportsmanship associated with the Dominion. Conditions such as those met at the outset by the famous team in 1905 will not be duplicated. They arrived unheralded, almost unnoticed, with little expectation outside those circles definitely associated with Rugby football. Their metebric rise into fame, the manner in which the name of the " All Blacks " passed almost into a proverb make a story too often told to need repeating. The tradition of invincibility they founded—despite the one reverse in their record revived and continued by the military teams put into the field when the New Zealand Expeditionary Force | was serving abroad. Not only in Britain and France, but in the Eastern war zone the reputation of New Zealand football was upheld. When next year's team sets sail, therefore, expectation will be at a high pitch. The great question will be whether this small country will prove a match, or more, than a match, on the football field for older and more populous countries. By that time Rugby football will have been played in England for more than 100 years, longer than New Zealand has existed as a' British country. It is a piquant situation. The touring team will have before it a great standard which it must set itself to attain. It will also have the inspiration of past achievements to stimulate it>> efforts. As a consequence of the past, it will meet the strongest opposition that can possibly be placed in the field against it. Whatever the outcome, it can safely be predicted that New Zealand's reputation for good sportsmanship will be maintained and enhanced, which is of more importance than that the 1024 team should win all its matches.