RUGBY ARTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22632, 25 July 1935, Page 4

RUGBY ARTS

"DUMMY" AND FEND PLACE-KICKING. Games -change from time to time without any alteration of the rules, just as everyday conduct changes periodically without interference from a Government. Much has come into Rugby of recent vears. but much has gone out of it (wrote H. J. Henley in the closing days of the nast Rugby football season in England). What, for instance, has become of that once valuable part of attack, the "handoff"? It is not necessary to have reached the white hair and lumbago stage of life to remember the time when handing-off was almost as familiar as side-stepping and swerving. Sometimes the hand-off bore a close resemblance to a boxers straight left, although theoretically it was a welltimed push with the open palm. TAKEN AS NEW.

It was a brave sight to see'the man who was running full-tilt with the ball shoot out a long arm to connect with the breast-bone of the full-back about to tackle. If the-push were properly timed, and the defender were a little of his balance, he went down with a bump, while the man with the ball raced gaily over the line. A useful shot in anv players locker, this hand-off, but it has been so

rarely seen in recent seasons that when it does make an appearance very young people gasp with astonishment, borne ot them imagine that it is new, whereas it actually goes back to the days when Rugger men played in trousers. Why. it has been practically shelved after being regarded for so long as one of the arts of the game I cannot imagine. Probably the sole reason is that a new generation regarded it as oldfashioned, and scorned it accordingly as a tribute to their own superiority. _ Another " wheeze " once familiar which now appears to be on its death-bed is that subterfuge known as "selling the dummy"; but the "dummy" ceased to b e popular because it had been overdone. It was dropped because it had become too familiar to be deceptive. But it was always difficult to" perform properly. " Selling the dummy" was really a form of bluff, and accomplished bluffers are rare.

In its day, however, it produced many triee. Perhaps, after it- has entirely disappeared for a few years, some enterprising youth will resurrect it, beat the attack by it, as it did in its infancy, and win fame and glory. How cleverly C. N. Lowe, R. W. Poulton-Palmer, and others of their time used it! PLACE KICKING.

Place kicking cannot be included among the Rugby arts' that are dying out, because its survival is ensured by th e laws of the game, but there is ample evidence that players are ceasing to cultivate it. The official Rugby Annual for this year, when commenting on place kicking as it was seen last season, said: —"Why few full-backs are able to perform this part of their duties is beyond comprehension. Schoolboys seem able to convert more tries than the average international fifteen." ,

This season the English international team was lees open -to such criticism because there had been discovered in the person,of H. Boughton someone who had carefully studied his "duties" in all their branches, but in Rugby generally, no matter how famous th e sides, place kicking —which, of course, is as closely connected with penalties as with tries —has again been deplorably and unnecessarily bad. Successful place kicking is largely a matter of practice [and correct placing of the ball. —"Full-back"] not a heavensent gift, and it wins matches as surely as pace and cleverness. This is an old, old story, but it is an important story in spite of its antiquity. PREMATURE PASSING.

One other change that has come over the game, for better or for worse, is the eagerness shown by a large proportion of backs to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible. ■ ' The moment they receive a pass, or pick up, they regard it as their sacred duty to throw out the ball where another of their side may or may not be, or to kick ahead. Probably this is the consequence of the persistency with which the sin of selfishness is dinned into the ears of young players. Selfishness, of course, is one of 'the deadly vices in a game, and it has lost many matches and cost many a man a chance of an international cap.

But it is going to a ridiculous extreme when a player, unhampered, in no danger of a tackle, throws the ball haphazard into the ether before he has run five yards, because he imagines that his first duty is to give someone else a chance. Many times this season I have seen players with a clear course in front of them lose the race for the lm e because they kept on turning their heads to see if there was anyone near to take a pass when the only sane and safe thing to do was to run on.