AS OTHERS SEE THEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22225, 27 September 1935, Page 15

AS OTHERS SEE THEM

IDOL OF THE SMALL BOY ONE CONSOLING THOUGHT "WE TAUGHT THEM ANYWAY" [from our own* correspondent] By Air Mail LONDJDN, Sept. 7 Mr. T. B. R. Woodroffo, in this week's Spectator, writes about the visiting team, under the title, "More Invaders." "The Englishman," ho says, "can congratulate himself that ho has invented almost every game worth playing, except, of course, one —but that reflection is cold comfort when young men of his own blood repeatedly come hero from overseas and show him how j to play them. "In that moment of inspiration or absent-mindedness when the immortal Charles Webb Ellis first picked up a ball and ran with it in his hands, he can have had little idea of tho effect his action would have on the lives of future fenerations in a land at the other side of the world. It is owing to that act of genius or aberration that 29 young men from New Zealand, two of whom are Maoris, are now over here to have tho time of their lives. "At the other side of the world, men, even strangers and enemies, will congratulate each other gleefully on mornings of gorgeous summer on the fact that tho All Blacks have won again. For the next few months there will be but one topio of conversation in the Dominion: how the team is doing. The price of wool, tho exchange, the election in November, will all give it place. Hugger has a hold on all strata of the community in New Zealand such as can be compared to no other game anywhere, unless it bo to the mania of the Basques for pelota. "The All Black is a hero, a godlike creature, not only to the small boys who pester him for his autograph but to staid elderly citizens with everincreasing girths. The latter can still recapture that thrill of being noticed by a blood in the Fifteen when one of the chosen nods to him on tho street. "New Zealand is a land where all life, animal as well as vegetable, thrives to excess. Deer have multiplied until they are vermin, violets grow to the size of sunflowers, marrows are like zeppelins and tho trout like young whales. It is not surprising, therefore, that the country should also produce giants who can run like hares and handle a ball like Cinquevallis to make terrific forwards. Our visitors, the statisticians tell us, weigh in the aggregate an incredible number of stone and can all do the hundred in even time. The forwards are fighting fit, the backs are all penetrating, resourceful and slippery. But more important than individual prowess, this team comes over with the performances of their predecessors to look back on, and they will not, if they know it, lose a single match while they are here. Woe betide them on their return if they did! "Observing all this, I cannot for the life of me see myself being able to say, rather sorely, on their departure, other than: 'Well, anyhow, we taught them tho game in the first place'."

JACK MANCHESTER NOT FROM LANCASHIRE "THE IDEAL RUGBY CAPTAIN" [from our own correspondent] By Air Mail LONDON, Sept. 7 Every journal in London and the provinces is greatly interested in tho New Zealand Rugby team. The Manchester Evening News writes: —" Lancashire people will take a lot of persuading that Jack: Manchester, the tall and genial skipper of our New Zealand Rugby Union visitors, is not a Lancashire lad. Ho was rather tickled to find that his name attracts so much attention when I talked to him in London withm a few hours of setting foot on English soil for the first time. " ' Lancashire I may be, hut it is a long way back,' he said. ' My grand, parents founded the Manchester family in New Zealand—and they came from Grantham! '

" Jack Manchester looks the ideal captain for a Rugby XV. No ' All Black ' will tell you that his side is as good as the last one—agreed to bo among the bes£ ever. Their maxim is that deeds speak louder than words. Their confidence is quiet but very strong." Mr. W. F. Sanderson (Daily Mail) met the Rangitiki at Tilbury and talked with members of the team who, sooner or later, all made the same request: " ' Can you start a campaign to have us called by our proper "name? This ' All Blacks ' business is so misleading. Few people, other than Rugby enthusiasts, realise that this title comes from our playing colours.' There has therefore been talk of changing the playing colours. That, I think, would be a pity-" • !