RECORD RUBBY TOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18946, 18 February 1925, Page 11

RECORD RUBBY TOUR.

'aiI.BIACKS' LAST GAME.

THE DEFEAT OF ENGLAND.

W OTtmTimATE 'OPENING.

. OTMNTS ON THE TEAM.

•ITKEST BACKS EVER SEEN."

\ BT COLCWJIIi FHtLir TREVOR, C.8.8. • LONDON. Jaru 8. T3w» recwrd-breakirtg and reeord-making tear of the New glanders is over and go is tie great match, England v. New Zealand —the greatest international match that has ever been played. In the forefront of ray remarks about that match I am compelled to pnt what is known, and what long will be known, as the Brownlie incident. I fear I can add nothing with regard to actnal fact to what has already been written and cabled concerning that incident. Frankly I did not ee© what happened nor do I believe that anyone else in the press box did either. The play at the time was in the far comer of the ground and a scrummage hid Browhlie from our view bat I saw very clearly what happened before Frankly this great game had a very bad, indeed a very ngly opening. I do not know who started the objectionable kind of thing we saw bot I do know that some two or three minutes after lie match had begun, when gome scrummages were formed in front of the press box, I particularly noted the Tenom with which two or three forwards in each pack were attacking. Traces of it, were to be seen in their faces and more than traces of it in their play. Flames of Passion.

Even then I feared the worst. Twice did I see an English forward strike at a New Zealander. Oace did I see a New Zealander strike an Englishman and once did I sea him attempt to do so. The referee mnsi have seen all this too, or possihly he saw similar malpractices which 1 did not sea. In vain did he warn and warn. Then came the culmination of it ail in the doing of the thing which caused him to teU Cyril Brownlie to leave the field. Cyril Brtwrofce, as of course you are aware, denied committing the offence for ■which he was officially punished and in consequence many illogical people, most of whom ought to know better, have said that it was just a case of his word against Mrs. Freefchy's word and ihati obviously cm or other of thein was lying. 3 shall take tha liberty of calling that statement nonsense and very stupid nonsense at thai "What I &ra quite sore about is th is, thai at the period of the game in qoestkm several members of both packs bad not the least idea what they were doing. Flames of passion had obscured their sight and their understanding. Of coarse, I wanted England to win, bat after this regrettable incident I was relieved that they did not win, nor do I think on the whole that they deserved to win. For all that, New Zealand caaae nearer l>eing beaten in this match than they did at Newport or at Cambridge. Never before have I seen the Nerw Zealanders start nervously. If England had gone on striking definitely when the iron was hot, tier® might have been a different story to teU Even when the scrapping was going on in the scranrmag© tite English forwards—thanks to the wise ones who kept themselves under control—were getting the bnll and heeling it effectively. The Eng. li&b halfbacks were feeding their threequarter line quickly and affectively, and the members of that threeqnarter line were surprising themselves and us by their dashing and accurate attack. AH Blades Steady Up. For more than 20 minutes England Were a better 'team at all points of the Same, but before the (match bad lasted half-an-hour the New Zealanders had steadied theatsdfoes and, though never once in the coarse of it did we see the combined attack of f&e New Zealand back division at iis best, we were at long last reminded that these all-conquering tourists have more than one method of attack. The art of making an opening oat of nothing, and of individually carrying it through, is always more than useful; it re of priceless value when your combined attack has Mod or, rather when no serious attempt has been made' ,"to bring if. into use. That was what ■happened in this match. From the jmoment New Zealand drew level the initiative of the Englishmen weakened, .and when New Zealand drew ahead it (Seemed to stop with a jerk.

The English forwards battled on as .hravejy as ever, and the English halfstacks still gave the men in rear the '.necessary encouragement to attack, but '<>>rbeti, who was in charge of the bark 'division, suddenly got over-cautions, and '•"-hen be did not actually concentrate on defence, be declined to trust the wing players to use their hands. He did some oblique kicking. but for the oblique kick to have any real ehsnre of success---such at least is my opinion—it must he perfectly done. Tt, vas not perfectly dine, and oftener than not the New Zealand backs got the ball in consequence. England's Strong Finish,

Missing r>o opportunity of retaliation, the New Zealanderr. steadily increased their lead, and when that, lead was at its longest.—l 7 points to 3-—England lint) for serne little time been playing like, a beaten bide. Tt -was due to the faith and cleverness of Young, the scrum half, that belter counsels prevailed at a time, however, when it. was too late to save the game. Young hurled the ball out Mme forty yards to Gibbs <">n the left wing when in his own twenty-five. Gibbs then missed scoring a, try by inches. England woke' up. The manoeuvre was re. psat«d and again war. there the. same remit. Gibbs repeated his exploit and all but scored again. The crowd yelled encouragement. England then played better than ever, and f'orbett. who was now helping bis wings in his best form, dropped a good penalty goal Vvorii a rather awkward angle. E;»-l of all e»me KifterTna?iter's try, wliirh was the try of the M»tcb. One** again did Young start the attack in his ow.i twenty five, and this time it quite succeeded. I say. New Zealand deserved to win. They had faith in their own varict.v, and apart from the fact, thai they find only 14 men on the field after the game had lasted ten minutes, thev shrived greater ingenuity and resource. If I can manage to forgot its ugly opening it will live in mv memory a.> about tin; greatest match I have seen. . The tour hap. been record making, and it. has been record breaking and if lias well-deserved to he both. It was always crystal-clear to me that a grert'i side had come here. T took ray ehntwc at Devonport on the occasion of the first match of being dubbed a false prophet, fl nd I have never had any reason to hedge so far as detail or technique ** concerned. The tikis' credilshle f hirisr these record-breaking New Zen landers have done is their adaption of their for. *ard game to the requirements of the varying British climate and to the m«»i hod,s of the British packs which have been op posed to them. That their forward play has greatly improved v ill. [ think, be generally admitted, but I personally single out. for special credit their adaptability to 'British conditions. The play of their bricks II can dismiss in a sentence. They are in aO respects the, gjgatast hack jdU'jsio.n I pave ever seen,

Gseafly daring,. I vertfewro to make a few remarks about their formation. I pay them what is obviously tho greatest possible compliment, when I say that they hare won, not, by their formation, but m spite of it.

During my (alas) long experience I have seen every species of formation, both in. the scrumage and behind it, and as the re suit. of that, experience J. corn© to the barren conclusion that there is no best formation and no woirt. Everything depends upon the human factor; but our ordinary English formation of eight forwards, packing 3—2—5, a scrum-ha if, a stand-off half, four three quarter backs, and a fullback is at least, a serviceable one, and has stood the test, of time and experience. Adopting their own formation, the New Zealanders have won every one of their matches and scored 645 points against 98 scored against them. Those figures represent a series of rather easily-won victories. If they had adopted our formation I do not think as many as 98 points would have been scored against them, and I feel particularly sure that they would have got somewhere about 1000 points against us. They would, so I imagine, have got the ball far oftener in the tight scrummages. Their solid pushing power would have been increased, and playing with the skill and combination of which they always showed themselves capable, six of their backs would have been more than good enough for six of ours on all occasions. If lam right, despite all the flattering things that have been said of them, their actual merits have been underestimated rather than overestimated.

MEMORABLE MATCH.

GAME FULL OF INTEREST. FOURTEEN VERSUS FIFTEEN. COOKE GIVES GREAT DISPLAY. (Bj L. Simj>Bon of the AD Blacks' party.} LONDON. Jan. L So the great game is over! January 3, 1925, at Twickenham, will long be remembered by all New Zealanders. First arrivals were there at dawn, and by 9 a.m. there were fully 5000 people waiting for the gates to open. The weather, fortunately, was fine, after heavy rain for nearly a week, and the ground was in fairly good condition.

Before the game commenced the Prince of Wales was introduced to each, player. There were 46,000 spectators from Wales, Ireland, Scotland and all over England, and they were treated to some thrilling and exciting football Of incidents there were plenty. Some, unfortunately, vera regrettable. On the English side there were 11 internationals. It was generally thought that younger players should have been given more consideration. Richardson captained the New Zealanders, and be won the toss for his team to start off with the advantage of a slight breeze. The •New Zealanders were teamed to th« minute, and no other team has ever taken the field with so much confidence.

From the kick-off the pace was a " cracker." It could be seen that the struggle was going to be a keen one. Thronghout the first spell the play went to and down the field in brilliant style. There were many fine passing boots by both sets of backs, and the huge crowd rose and swayed as some thrilling bouts took place. At this period England were holding an advantage in the scrums. TTiey frequently ordered scrums instead of lineouts. Young, their halfback, sent his hacks away tone after time, but some of his passes wera lobbed and difficult to take. The two wings, Hamilton-Wickes and Gibbs, showed a great turn of speed and they made several fine runs. England's youthful fullback, Brough, played his first international and he did remarkably well, some of his line-kicking being brilliant. The English forwards were a hefty lot, though on occasions they were inclined to play the man instead of the ball. They appeared to be on the old side, not having tbe dash of the New s?ealanders. A Heavy Handicap. For nearly 70 minutes of the game New Zealand played with 14 men. This naturally meant a tremendous handicap, especially as the missing player was such a sterling one as C. Brownlie. Unfortunately, right from the start, a lot of bad feeling crept in to the game. Some hot work went on in tbe tight during the first 10 minutes and the referee had occasion to stop the play and caution the players no less than three times. Soon after this, G. Brownlie was ordered off the field. It was indeed a most regrettable happening. Had a little tact been used this painful situation could have been avoided. It was the usual thing in these cases —the first culprit missed the referee's eye. Undoubtedly an English international forward was extremely lucky in not meeting tbe same fate as Brownlie. The incident cast a gloom over the great game to the end. The huge assembly was chilled, by the humiliation. Tbe fourteen remaining New Zealanders never once let tip in a titanic ''struggle, Parker went into the scram and for a time the AH Blacks appeared to be disorganised, but, they soon got into their stride. Disaster nearly came from the kick-off. A misunderstanding between Ncpia and Svenson as to who would receive the ball resulted in neither doing so, England were the first to score. After 17 minutes' play a fine try was obtained by CoveSmith- The English forwards had wheeled a serum and, sweeping the New Zealanders aside. Smith kicked past Ncpia and a great race for the line took place. The scene, needless to say, whs almost indescribable. Useful Lead Maintained.

Tlic All Blacks were not to be denied. They came away with a great. dash, and a ftor some pretty handling Hvcnson scored a brilliant try. " Steel brought the score tip to 6 witb a good try in the corner, and Nicholls kicked a fine penalty goal. The question at the interval was could New Zealand hold their lead with 14 mm ? Tt was soon proved that they could. The All Blacks ran tip another 3 points, the Englishmen doing likewise. 'I he scecnirl snell was pome what similar in the first, except, that New Zealand secured the ball more often from the serums. There were some thrilling pieces of play. Nepia was good at fullku-k. He played his thirty-first consecutive game, (three in Australia i. a great record. His line kicking and handling of the ball were brilliant. Steel was not, up to his usual standard. He refused to ta<"kle low, and some shocking attempts were made to bold Gibbs, who was too fast for him. Sve.nson was sound. He had a hard man in Hamil-ton-Wicks to watrh. t'-ooke was easily the b«*fct back. It r ' played a wonderful game, often assisting Steel. His tackling was deadly, lie received some, well-earned applause for his play. Nicholls played well. He had his kicking boot. on. He narrowly missed a dropped goal and converting Svenson's try. but, M. Rmwnlir's try was converted with a magnificent kick from within a yard from the line. The, ball frrnr,c<l the upright. M>-< ir<\er>r got: throusb a tremendous lot of work vevv wc, l !. His defence was fairly sound, though he missed his man on two occasions. Mill played nicely l>"hind Hie smini. and psp'eriaHv in the second spell. He was ready for every possible "pening. His perfect passing kept Nicholls and McGregor busv. Barker played his usual g«od game, and "scored a fine try. The outstanding forward .was M. Brownlie. He played a wonderful game, and seemed to make up for the absolve of his brother. He was on the ball. The, try which be scored in the, second spell was one of great delormination. He absolutely threw himself across the line still held liv two opponents. White was a good second to Brov.uJic, a great worker. Richardson and Masters were in the thick of all the lotijjb wurk. and there was plenty of it- They both played sterling foothalk The two front-rankers Donald and Irvine revelled in their work from start to finish. They played wonderfully well.