RUGBY FOOTBALL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18454, 16 January 1922, Page 6

RUGBY FOOTBALL

THE DAY OF THE UNIVERSAL ‘ PLAYER. DANGERS OF SPECIALISATION. (Fbou Ode Own Coebespondent.) • LONDON, November 30. Although the English Rugby Union has invariably shown a certain nervousness with regard to the game in New Zealand, it is interesting to notice that most writers' on the subject of Rugby are compelled to base their remarks largely on the 1905 tour of the All Blacks in this country. Incidentally it may be remarked that 16 years seems a long time to await’ a repetition of that triumphal tour. Colonel Philip Trevor’s article in the Daily Telegraph on the Rugby game will reawaken a groat many memories, and will show that even after this lapse of time the All Blocks still retain the repntation aa one of the greatest football combinations the world has known, whose example it is still well worth following. “We are beginning,” he writes, “to turn a comer which at one time threatened-to be an awkward one. We were in danger of suffering from over-specialisotion in position in the Rugby field, and looking back now it is somewhat difficult to understand why that special danger ever loomed. A ■ good many years have passed since the New Zealand team oame to this country to surprise end defeat us. Some things, which that team did we disapproved and we were certainly right to disapprove. I am not now concerned with talking about the loose head and obstruction. Much pleasanter is it, and ati the same time more beneficial, to remember the great lessons that team taught us, or ought to have taught us. Perhaps one would say that the chief of those lessons was the value of pace—the pace of a team as a whole. Long before the ‘All Blacks’ came here we had been accustomed to speed in the back division, end now and again (though rarely, I admit) some fleet) pack' of forwards came under our notice. > “It was left, however, to the New Zealanders to show us that when a movement in the open . was under way players were no longer divided into forwards and backs. I do not doubt that if you had taken some good English team at random and insisted on each one of them competing in a hundred yards race you would not have found that all the backs would /each the tape before 'all the forwards. Such an experiment might easily have resulted in the honours being divided between backs and forwards. But pace on the cinder path is, we know, a very different thing ■ from pace on the Rugby football field. I do not know if either at Rugby or Oxford Adrian Stoop won- any prizes for running, but I do know that on the football field, with the ball in his hands, he was appreciably about the fastest player I have seen. He got up speed immediately and he was very economical in- his use of ground. Wo have long since learnt, by the way, that your level timer is not necessarily a dangerous wing three-quarter back even if he can take his passes, well. It was pace when in possession of the ball. That the New Zealander taught us. And when we said that their forwards were as fast as their backs that is what we meant. Somewhat strangely, however, we did not, after the departure xrf the New Zealanders, turn that lesson to practical account. PLACE OF THE FORWARDS. “If ten or twelve years ago some enterprising forward had got into the habit of being invariably up with a view to participating in a bout of passing instituted by the half-backs, the members of the three-quarter; lino might have said -that they wished that fellow would keep his place. From their point of view hia place was only in front of them when there 'was tight scrummaging, but that when the open movement by the backs had begun his place, or rather his metier, was to get out of the way. I cannot say .exactly now or when a better state of affairs was first observable, or even if we. were definitely conscious that it was the New Zealanders who brought it about. Personally, I think that the famous ‘ Cherry’ Tillman had as much to do with it is anyone else. Everyone knows, of course, that he was a - great try-getter, and even those who disapproved of the kind of play of which he was tho pioneer admired 'his effectiveness as an individualist. What, however, was not generally realised was the help which Pillman gave on occasions to the three-quarter line. I was always intensely interested in what, he did, and frequently did I observe how he made openings for the other fellow to score. Pillman was always pretty careful in the giving of his passes, and tfhot remark is especially applicable to a certain presentday forward—namely, ‘Bruno’ Brown. THE ESSENCE OF ATTACK. “ We have long since been agreed that the whole essence of attack in combination is numerical superiority at the actual point of attack. The, Leicester Club, for instance, are so convinced of this necessity that they permanently kept an extra man in their back division, and in order to do so they are willing to undergo the handicap of losing a man in the scrummage. Surely, however, if you have a Pillman or a Brown (especially a Brown, for Pillman never professed to be a great scrummager, as’scrummaging is usually understqpd), you get that superiority without the sacrifice of weight and strength in the pack. And if one Brown, why not two or; three Browns ? I am not. of course, advocating an indiscriminate dash up by the forwards when the back division is carrying out a bout of passing, put those who remember what the Now Zealanders did, and how they did it, will also remember' that practically never with them was it a case of ‘too many cooks.’ I think, then, wo are satisfied that in the open it is an advantage for a forward to be able to act as •a kind of extra three-quarter back. We are now in process of going rather beyond that. Parenthetically, I would observe that a few years ago we were obsessed in all our games with this doctrine of specialisation. Cricket wes certainly a case in point. They were batsmen who ‘felt they would not do themselves justice unless they went in third wicket down,’ and fieldsmen who ‘felt awkward all the time when called upon to field second slip instead of first slip.’ We are, I say, getting out of those ruts now, and when we have a good player we rightly refuse to lightly part with hi mby over-exp-pressing the doctrine of specialisation “Are the duties of a Rugby football player as legion and. are they even conflicting? If you were to say to a three-quarter back, ‘lt’s no good asking you anything about “flyhalf,” you won’t know,’ I think he would feel insulted. At any rate, when he has felt himself starved because of the selfishness of the fly-half, he has probably* been voluble enough as to what that player had not done and ought to have done. So one would imagine he would know something about it. Let us, I soy, be thankful that the awkward corner has been turned. And even if the day of tho universal player has not yet dawned, do not let us get into the habit of talking of a rash experiment when a man who is known to be a good player in one pos.tion is desired to undertake tho duties ot another position."