FIRST TEST

Southland Times, Issue 21109, 14 June 1930, Page 8

FIRST TEST

THE ALL BLACKS

SELECTION VIGOROUSLY CRITICIZED

“A TEAM OF VETERANS”

(Special to the Times.) Dunedin, June 13.

In vigorously criticizing the selection of the team for the First Test match, “Fullback” writing in the Otago Daily Times, states that the names of the 19 players announced would cause a distinct shock or disappointment to all followers of the game.

Continuing, the writer makes reference to the large amount of public money devoted to fostering the game in this country by providing grounds and stands and sending teams on tour. He goes on to say that the selectors have in effect declared that there are no promising young players in the Dominion and that in big football they prefer to rely on what is virtually a team of veterans. “Moreover I shall endeavour to prove,” he says, “that the selectors are not good judges of football and that it is time that they, along with some of the veterans, were retired to the bank. Of the 19 players provisionally selected we have eight who went to England as far back as 1914 and nine who went to South Africa in 1928. Hart, Oliver, Cotterell, Steere and Batty are therefore what may be termed the only new players although Cottrell and Steere went to Australia with the New Zealand team in 1929. Will any follower of the game claim that we have not young players in the Dominion who could fill the positions allotted to the veterans? Is there no young player who could take the place of Nicholls, no full-back as good as Nepia, no half-back as clever as Mill, who is brilliant on attack but not so' brilliant on defence? The action of the selectors is not going to help our football and they have to my mind shown a hopeless lack of initiative. Our football lives in the future —the selectors are living in the past. Probably the neatest commentary I have heard on the selection was from a one-time Otago rep. forward who takes a prominent part in the local administration of the game. He asked me what I thought of the ‘prehistories’ and bitterly complained that the one-time famous ‘Jimmy’ Duncan had been omitted from the team. Duncan last played for Otago in 1903.”

In conclusion “Full-back” places .an interesting suggestion before the selectors. -He says, “I know from past experience that the "New Zealand selectors resent any criticism of their selections nor do they welcome suggestions. Might I humbly submit to them, however, a suggestion that for one of the Tests, at any rate, an entirely new New Zealand team should be selected. I will go further and suggest to the management committee of the New Zealand Rugby Union that it should instruct its selectors to pick a complete new team for that match.”