ALL BLACKS' RECORD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21098, 4 February 1932, Page 12

ALL BLACKS' RECORD.

METHODS IN BRITAIN.

MR. H. R. JENKINS' ASSERTION.

ENGLISH WRITER'S WARM DENIAL,

[FHOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

LONDON", Dec. 31

The criticism of the last New Zealand All Black football team to visit Britain passed by Mr. H. R. Jenkins, of Auckland, on his return from a visit to England, lias created considerable interest in sporting circles. Mr. Jenkins said:— When 1 was in England I found that everyone had praise for the New Zealand cricket teams, but that the 1924 All Blacks had not left at all a good impression behind them; they were regarded more as pot-hunters than sportsmen." Rugby people here who have been spoken to on the'subject say "Non sense!"

Mr. O. W. Packford, of Sporting Life, takes the matter seriously and writes as follows:—"If in the message the Sporting Life received from Auckland, Mr. Jenkins is correctly reported, his uujustifiable indictment of the 1924 All Blacks must be at onco refuted by someone in this country. I have no hesitation in doing so. To describe the last and invincible All Blacks team as pothunters is ridiculous, for there are no pots to be obtained as the result of playing Rugger in these days. To infer that the good name of the Now Zealand soldiers, won in the war, was marred by the tour of 1924 is a statement so outrageous in character that it seems impossible it could have been publicly advanced. Personal Recollections. " In 1924 I got to know many of the players as a result of travelling the country with them. Of several of them, particularly Mark Nicholls, Maurice and Lyril Brownlee and George Nepia, I have very happy personal recollections. The Rugby players of 1924 and those gallant troops whom I saw in Palestine, and to whom Lord Allenby owed so much in his last historic campaign, were identical in character. They were indomitable in action.

"In war the men in khaki battled for the love of Empire; those we saw 011 the playing fields of Great Britain were so concerned for the sporting prestige oi: their own country that they fought courageously in every contest to attain a wonderful distinction. They passed through a series of thirty engagements, including international games with England, Ireland, Wales and France, and they won every one of them, an achievement unparalleled in the history of the game. In accomplishing this they, not. infrequently, were faced with a stern, relentless opposition that fought strenuously every moment of the game to check the remarkable series of successes of Cliff Porter and his men. " Best Traditions of the Game."

" These men always played hard—they would not have attained to prominence had they not done so—and when they crashed into those capable of accepting their challenge there was naturally lire and fury in the air. But, with a fewisolated exceptions—and so infrequent were they that one only dimly recalls that there were such—we never witnessed incidents that could in the least degree suggest that the best traditions of (lie game were not. being observed. There is a vast difference between excessive vigour and foul play, and for anyone. <0 suggest that -the 1924 All Blacks were consistently guilty of, or prone to, methods that would have been universally condemned is intolerable to those of us who saw the majority of their games. "It was amusing to me in the early days of the 1924 tour to hear remarks from peculiar people that the operations of the All Blacks were open to question. These arose from the fact that the New Zealanders introduced methods of attack and defence that they had developed info a high art, which were until then completely unknown over here. " Ridiculous Nonsense." " Included in these methods was the so-called wing-forward game of Porter—a player who, regarded as a forward, did not even place a hand 011 the scrum, and frequently undertook the duties of a scrum-half. To the pettv-minded critic these were sharp practices 011 the part of the New Zealand captain. What ridiculous nonsense !

" Porter was simply playing a game that was recognised in his own country, and even if he were occasionally penalised for obstruction this was due to his wonderful enthusiasm, and not to a desire to obtain an unfair advantage. Any attempt to discredit the 1924 All Blacks, especially after such a lapse of time, is almost of an unforgivable nature, and coming from one of their own countrymen it is difficult to understand. " Personally, I shall never forget the team led by Cliff Porter. It was a magnificent machine, a combination of Hugger men who opened our eyes to possibilities of an unusual nature, and they were sportsmen. Fancy a man like Mark Nicholls being regarded as anything else!"