DISAPPOINTING DISPLAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27386, 11 May 1950, Page 8

DISAPPOINTING DISPLAY

| British Rugby Team’s | First Match I TOO MANY INFRINGEMENTS PA NELSON, May 10. The British Isles Rugby team opened its New Zealand tour with a win by 24 points (two tries and six penalty goals) to 3 (a try) against a Combined team from the Nelson, Marlborough and Golden Bay-Motueka Unions. The match proved a triumph for the visitors’ left winger, Thomas, who scored 21 points with six penalty goals out of his first six attempts and capped his performance in the final minutes Of play with a solo try after running the whole length of the field. "> As a spectacle, the match Avas disappointing, owing to frequent infringements. Winning 28 scrums and 42 line outs compared Avith the Combined team’s figures of 8 and 13 respectively, the visitors’ backs had a feast of the ball, but uncertain handling and lack of finish—faults which no doubt will disappear as the tour gets under Avay—lost many scoring opportunities. The visitors had no fewer than 26 penalties awarded against them, several for such things as playing a tackled ball, compared with 12 against Combined.

The visitors oacked a 3-4-1 scrum throughout. The well-knit formation was supported by Mullen's splendid hooking. He won the ball from tight or loose heads with great regularity. Stephens, McCarthy and Budge were three outstanding forwards, appearing to have a greater degree of fitness than some of the others. Among the backs Rimmer and Preece were impressive, and this combination behind the scrum showed promise of some fine football. Rimmer’s long low passes gave the stand-off half every opportunity in setting the line of backs in motion or in varying play by reversing it to the forwards, as he did effectively on several occasions. The play of the three-quarter line was mainly orthodox, with emphasis on feeding the wingers as quickly as possible. The defence of the home team, however, was sound, with clean tackling, and in order to pierce it other tactics were necessary. A grubber kick used by Rimmer on one occasion nearly gave Preece a try. Cleaver was a proficient full-back who joined in the back line on several occasions.

meet that type of play that the visitors made a number of infringements. During the first half Lane was off the field for about 15 minutes owing to an ankle injury. Thie home team paid the full price for infringements when Thomas first did the hat trick with three penalties, all from 35 yards out, and then gained his fourth from in front of the posts, making the half-time score 12—nil in the visitors’ favour. He had virtually made the game safe for siis side, but in the first 10 minutes of the second spell he was successful twice more, and in scoring six penalty goals he made a new record for first-class matches in New Zealand. Five minutes before the end, Sharland made a well-placed clearing kick which found the opposition out of position, allowing Leggat to gain possession and send the winger, Kingi, in for a try. Only two minutes remained when Combined were attacking right on the visitors’ line, and Preece scooped the ball out to Thomas, whose pace carried him past the immediate defenders and then past the home half-back, Eden, who had given chase, a try being scored in the corner. The weather was fine and calm, and the ground was in excellent order after watering to take the sting out of it. The attendance was about 7000. ,

The Combined team’s back combination proved good in their limited opportunities, the spearhead being the 1949 Maori All Black and captain, W. Taylor. Their forwards were outplayed in all departments except rucking, in which they showed special ability, and it was in their efforts to

Standard Pleases Nobody

From Our Staff Correspondent NELSON, May 10. As expected, the British Isles Rugby team today won the first match of its tour by defeating the Combined Nelson-Marlborough-Golden BayMotueka team by 24 points to 3, but the manner of scoring pleased nobody, least of all the members of the visiting team.

•Against the* Combined team’s score ofi one unconverted try, the British Isjes team scored two unconverted trjes and six penalty goals. The goals wbre all kicked by the Welsh wing three-quarter, M. C. Thomas, who at 2t> is the youngest member of the tedm. In the very last minute of the game, too, Thomas ran 105 yards down the touch line for a try. The British Isles other try, the first to be obtained on the tour, was scored by Ivor Preece, the stand-off half, who has captained England for the last two seasons. It was a painfully irritating game, and the whistle blew an unconscionable number of times. The ball seemed seldom to be thrown in straight from the line out, and knocks-on were dreadfully frequent. The game therefore was somewhat provoking and the crowd seemed to be greatly disappointed with the standard. 1 Schooling Needed

aft. Roberts and McCarthy, as already noted, had speed well above the average in the forwards, and Thomas, Lane, Preece, and McCarthy were fast and sometimes very elusive in the backs. Rimmer’s runs from the scrum in midfield were very strong and well judged, but close to the line he was not quite agile enough to beat the defence, valiantly though he tried on several occasions. Three or four times the forwards started to take the ball away in dribbling rushes, and in these every man was ooviously well trained. Perhaps the best feature of all was that, mistakes or no. the team still tried to spin the ball. Early in the game there were some most exciting changes of direction in attacks, and several times the forwards joined these very cleverly. Moreover, there was clearly a danger in Thomas’s wellplaced cross kicks to midfield from the wing.

Quite the most startling feature was the disregard paid the elementary laws by some of the British players. Among the backs, J. Matthews, Thomas and M. Lane all handled immediately after a tackle, and Rees Stephens, a forward, was penalised twice within a minute for offside play. Among the forwards the two wingers, V. G. Roberts and J. S. McCarthy, were quick to get offside and slow to recover their ground. These errors would suggest the need of some strict schooling. While Mr E. W. Tindill, the referee, appeared : t times to be unecessarily strict and even finicky in his rulings, he was undoubtedly justified in penalising so many British Isles infringements. It has to be said of the Combined team that its forwards worked manfully, and that K. Sharland, the fullback, played with distinction. Nevertheless, the defence of the back line was slow and unsound, and in pretty well every passing rush one British Isles player or another was given the opportunity to make ground. This was where the real weakness of the team was evident. The adherence by the centre three-quarters to a plan of midfield penetration gave Thomas no reasonable opportunity to exploit his pace or Lane his pace and nimbleness. Both Matthews and R. MacDonald did some unaccountable things. Having beaten one man, they held on and tried to beat more, or else they gave each other and their supports passes delivered with their eyes on an opponent, and therefore lacking in essential accuracy. The fault was not entirely theirs. G. Rimmer, the scrum half, played two different games, the one of individual efforts of kicking and running being surpassingly good, and the other, of simple service to the backs, being surprisingly slow and uncertain. He wound himself up for some of his passes, and gave Preece a difficult time with rasses of awkward height and uncertain length. Preece was very much the rock of the back line. He began with a midfield break which was as pretty as one could wish, and was always cool in defence and careful and deliberate in attack. He seemed not to have the very fast burst over 10 yards of some of the great players of the position, but in all other respects he made a strong impression as a thoroughly sound and accomplished player. The forwards began by losing the first scrum, and having a most difficult task in trying to get their line-out play under control. By the second spell both their scrummage and lineout play had greatly improved, in the latter case largely because of the excellent play of Stephens, and in this half, from both sources, possession was secured 23 times to the Combined team's two. The weakness of the pack as a whole was in the rucks, in which the packing of the forwards was too loose. This was particularly apparent in the mauls following line outs. The packing was not cleancut and strong, and even wh.n Stephens or one of his mates made a clean catch it was by ro means certain that the ball would be heeled. The forwards, in fact, lacked devil except for a period in the second half, and probably this can be attributed to a lack of fitness through the journey from Liverpool.

All in all, one had to admit that, if expectations had not been quite realised, there was plentiful evidence of talent in the touring team. Moreover, as 1949 so painfully reminds us, the penalty kick is a valid part of Rugby. Most of Thomas’s kicks Avere good ones from 35 or 40 yards. Considering its lack of experience, the Combined team did well. One of its best forwards, K. Lammas, had to retire 16 minutes before no-side with a leg injury. He.had been well supBorted by S. Craddock. R. Jensen, and '. Ward, three tough forwards wi.ose

spoiling play in the line outs was effective. E. Eden, a young" player, was a plucky half-back, and Sharland was a splendid full-back. He initiated the Combined side’s try by fielding a bouncing ball, eluding several British Isles forwards, and kicking upfield with sufficient judgment to beat Thomas on the bounce. I. G. Leggat gathered the ball, and D. Kingi made a fine 25-yard run for a try. At the start of the game the British Isles players looked splendid in their uniform of a red jersey with the monogram of the four Home unions, white shorts, blue stockings, and green garter flashes. Lesson Learned Both the team manager, Surgeoncaptain L. B. Osborne, N, and the captain, Karl Mullen, agreed after the match that many points for correction in the British Isles team’s play had arisen during the match. “I feel well satisfied,” said Captain Osborne. “We might have scored five tries and gained the entirely wrong impression that we were a team with no weaknesses. We now have something to put our teeth into.” Mullen said, “We have some hard work to do.”

The loose scrummaging was undoubtedly affected in quality by the undisguisedlv winging play of Roberts and McCarthy, who played on the flanks of the 3-4-1 formation, which was packed throughout the game. Thev were both very fast, if not auite hard enough by New Zealand standards. but they joined the rucks reluctantly, and the strength of the pack s work was accordingly reduced. The Credit Side Having said so much in criticism of the British Isles side, one finds that there is a sizeable contra entry in the ledger. The team had pace fore and