AUSTRALIAN RUGBY TEAM.

Southland Times, Issue 22999, 19 September 1936, Page 20

AUSTRALIAN RUGBY TEAM.

When the Australian Rugby team that is now making a tour of New Zealand has completed its match programme in the Dominion, shall we be able to agree with the Australian critics who have said that it is the strongest their country has ever sent across the Tasman? Probably we shall be able to agree, but we cannot judge satisfactorily on the team’s early matches, whatever the results of them, (writes “A.L.C.” in New Zealand Sporting Life). Two of the factors which have to be taken into consideration are the team’s adaptability to the pace—a little slower than that to which some of its members are accustomed —of the average New Zealand ground, and the discovery and development of the party’s best fifteen. In a team drawn from three States, the latter is the more important. It is partly for this reason that one or two teams that have come only from New South Wales may be accounted better than either of the first two Australian teams to tour New Zealand, even when allowance is made for differences in the calibre of the opposition to them.