RUGBY FOOTBALL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1641, 19 May 1919, Page 2

RUGBY FOOTBALL.

FIRST GRADE MATCHES. From the first two series of matches In the Canterbury llugby Union’s first grade competition three teams —Marists, Merivalo, and Old Boys—have emerged imdefeaWd. As the draw stands at present, - these teams will meet each tithe r in the next throe scries. Judging on- present appearances, Marists and Merivalo are most likely to fill the first two places in the championship table when the second round of matches is entered upon. Tho present positions of the teams are as follow:— _ . ,

' ; ■ An Indifferent Display. Old Boys have the material of which a very fair side could he made. Unless Vy. that material is welded into a . skilful combination, they will merely remain )!• a set of players who may possibly cause . complications ■in the premiership con- . test, rather than a team of potential i champions. Though they have won : their two matches to date, their show- ■ : ?/ ing has not been pleasing. It was in • but an indifferent game that Old Boys ; V beat Christchurch by six points (a try i and a penalty goal) to nil, last Saturday. The open and fairly fast play that ■ was seen at times was usually the result !' «f the ball being kicked or thrown in- , discriminately. There was very little i systematic play. i,l In these days the Old Boys are the li- Victims of an obsession. They suffer l; from the fixed idea that they must rely on their backs to win matches. Their : ; forwards are little more than * 1 feeders if.' of their backs. Consequently, when the opposition is sufficiently strong to hold up the Old Boys' backs, the team has no second string to its bow. It is ini’ comprehensible that Old Boys do not realise this and teach their forwards i: who, though light, are active and fairly i,- fast, and have some idea of combination i-:' —to “go on their own” more, and to i worry the opposing backs with determined forward rushes. Under their present style —it cannot really be called a system—of play, it is usually found that when the Old Boys’ forwards are amongst the opposing backs they are simply on a spoiling expedition, a raid intended to get the ball away from the other side’s backs to their own. Four Three-quarters. The weakness of Old Boys’ style of play was exemplified by Saturday’s game. The Christchurch Club also has a fondness for certain, ideas, and one of these is the theory that eight backs (with four of them in the threequarter line) and seven forwards are better than seven backs and eight forwards. So, when it found itself short of the selected wing-forward, T. W. Tothill, last Saturday, it decided to play a fourth three-quarter. Lacking an equal share of the control of the ball, and lacking also sufficient skill and L combination in attack to offset the former disadvantage, the Christchurch backs —a collection of individuals in.L stead of a combined division —found their superiority of numbers of greater use in defence than in attack. There was, however, a decided weakness in the Christchurch defence —high collaring instead of low tackling. The Old Boys ’ forwards “fed” their backs to the best of their ability, from scrum, line-out, and loose play, frequently neglecting fine opportunities for rushes from the line-out in their eagerness to sling the ball to the backs. But the White backs, who also were more an aggregation of individuals than an organised-whole, ■ did not have the skill to beat eight

• opponents. It was not ability to beat | the opposing backs which sometimes I enabled them to gain ground in attack- ' ing movements, but simply the desire ■ of most of the Christchurch backs to ! "clutch them by the necks. The one iri- ; stance in which the White backs did carry \ out a direct attack neatly and well was ' that which gave Boag his try. A. jj Thompson, at second five-eighths, haft been handling the ball badly, and had ■been varying runs towards the touchlines with cut-ins in which he held the ball too long. This time, however, when • the V">11 came to him, via half-back Cond. *e, from a scrum, he cut, in at the right moment, made an opening, -and then passed to Boag, who scored an unconverted try by the posts. That was in the first half of the game. ■Territorially, Christchurch, whose for- , -wards-troubled Old. Boys iu the loose, V' (lid as well as Old Boys, but scoring ability wasat a minimum. • however, it seemed from the Stand as if W. P. Guiney .had scored under the; Old Boys' goal, from a centring kick by Matson. But the referee, when he got

up with the play, decided that Guiney '"liftd not grounded the ball over the. line. On another occasion Christchurch missed a score through most of their players not following up. A fault of both sides was over-hard kicking of the ball in" the field of play. Old Boys espeeialy were at fault in that respect, and they gave Cooke, the Christchurch full-back, many opportunities for hearty punts to the touchlines. C. E. Guiney, Old Boys' first fiveeighths, had to retire in the first half, owing to an injury, and thereafter Gray played as five-eighths, instead of • wingforward. For the second half, C. Evans, recently returned from the front, went on to make up the Old Boys' fifteen, and the team _then played four threequarters. The only score in the. time in .which the two teams had the same numbers and arrangement of backs was a penalty goal kicked by J. Bain. The Advantage of Weight. :

Given a weighty and resolute pack, a Rugby ' fifteen lias an asset which more often than not is the determining factor in the game. Marists have a vanguard of this description, and it was really 'responsible for the largeness of the score (21 to nil) against University.-: True,, most of the points were gained by the greens' back division, but this was only because the opposition had lost cohesion and had been forced into defence, by the onslaughts of the Marist forwards. In the early stages, although there were indications that Marists would'obtain the mastery, the game was much more even and sonic time elapsed before the maroon- line was crossed. Indeed, Marists were only six points, ahead at half-time. The fust spell was really fast arid exciting, and served to emphasise the fact that if 'Varsity can effect an improvement in the personnel in one or two instances ftnd a{ the same time, improve in combination, it will be a team always to be reckoned with. Its full back, G. IT. Eobortson, is rather slow, and the first live-eighths, B. P. Hopkins, although a clever - and resourceful player, is severe-

ly handicapped by. lack of Weight when playing against attacking forwards. It is not implied that the 'Varsity pack is not a willing lot. Its luck "on Saturday was to be up against a heavier combination, but despite this there were intervals when such players as J. R. Maloney, A. Craven and C P. Bell led some very determined rushes. Bell, incidentally, showed some gamenoss in securing, difficult marks. The chief interest in Marists' performance was the fact that the opportunity came the way of the backs to indulge in attacking methods. In the second spell-par-ticularly, passing rushes were frequent". They are a fast lot, and their work was decidedly clever at times, but they have several obvious defects as yet. E. Fitzgerald, at half-back, did not waste a moment in whipping the ball out, quite apart from the fact that he lias the capacity of arriving wherever the ball is, whilst D. McCormack, at first five-eighths, is a resourceful and determined attacker. However, J. C. Mullins, at second five-eighths, tended to spoil the combination by "an eagerness to do more than his share. lie is a dangerous player who is always liable: to break through, but he needs to temper his eagerness. O'Malley, save that his passing was not always accurate, played excellently. Where the main improvement in needed is in the wing three-quarters. Khouri lost tries by hesitation; he seems to have altogetherlost that determination which is generally needed to cross the touch line. On the other wing, A. Bell on most occasions suggested the idea .that-more dash was needed, combined with the ability to take a pass accurately. However, it would seem certain that he could do better. In fact, he> gave glimpses evidencing -this, and on one occasion gained a clever try by placing a short kick over the full back's head and securing again. The place kicking was not a feature, six tries being unconverted. One try scored by Fitzgerald was doubtful, for that player picked the ball out of" the sc-rum prior to worming his way Over. But a number of breaches of the rules occurred without the whistle sounding. Fitzgerald also kicked a splendid penalty goal. One try was characteristic of the adaptability of five-eighths D. McCormack. ■ It was gained in a forward rush which he headed and which swept some distance down the field, the ball being dribbled nicely. The other scorers were Peterson, Flood, Bell and Malion.

Too Many Country Players. Although Mcrivale beat Albion by 21 to 3, this result does not. indicate the. relative merits of the teams.. About a quarter of an hour before the 6nd of the game three of the Albion players, who came from the country, had to leave in order to catch a train. ' During this quarter of an- hour Merivale scored 13 points. At a meeting held last week between delegates from the sub-unioils and members of the executive of the Canterbury Union tho question of country footballers playing for city teams was discussed at some length. No .definite decision was arrived at by the meeting, but the general opinion seemed to be that country players who did not obtain the permission of the sub-union governing the district in which they resided should be blocked, under the Canterbury Union's rules? from playing for city teams.-- However, if country players have to leave before .the end of a game in order to catch trains, it is not likely that city teams will be very anxious to have them, no matter how good they may be as footballers.

At half-time the score was 3-all, and this is a truer index of the. merits of the teams. If anything, Albion had the better of the first half. This was due mainly to the efforts of the Black forwards, who played a fine bustling game and, having the advantage in weight, werb able to sweep through their opponents at times. Of the Albion forwards, M. Sheridan and E. J. "Eathprna were especially prominent. Eathorne is an old Canterbury representative player. He turned out on Saturday just to help Albion, because the team was a man short. He proved a decided acquisition, and scored Albion's only try by a pretty piece of work. The Albion backs were not much in evidence in attack, but they played a good defensive game, and were also prominent for their spoiling tactics when the Merivale backs attempted a passing rush. 11. Luke, at full-back, was ver.y safe, but his kicking was hardly powerful enough. Merivale, on the whole, gave a rather disappointing display. It looks like a team that could give a good account of itself, if only the individual members •would study the finer points of the game and learn the value of . combination. There were some fine individual, efforts, which, although pretty to look at, did very little towards the.increase of the Merivale score,'' For instance,' E. Evans, at first five-eighths, made some very good openings, which he spoiled by forgetting that there wore at least three other backs starving for the ball and in a far better -position to score than he was. Evans was not the only offender in this respect,'but he *was the most noticeable because his individual work was really good. The Merivale forwards, although on the light" side, played a plucky game. L. Cade, N. Carnegie, and C. Hegarty were perhaps the best. One of the noticeable features of the game was the number of times the ball was marked. In fact, both sides seemed to get a fit of what might be called "markitis," and so bad did the malady become that players were heard to call out "Mark!" when they caught the ball on the bounce. It should always be remembered that the ball should not be marked except as 'a* last resort in a .tight corner, or when the player marking is iii- such a position that there is every possibility of kicking a goal. To mark on other occasions often spoils a good opening. . ; . .;''. Linwood arid Sydenham.

The game between -Linwood. and Sydenham, won by Liirwriod by nine poi.nts (two tries and a penalty goal) to nil, was a vigorous one' throughout, but neither side attained to real firstgrade form. Sydenham is principal weakness was the inability Of the. backs to co-operate with each other. If. Watson played a stifong individual game, and was directly responsible, by his good defensive work, for preventing several scores from being registered against his side. On the Linwood side Yates played a forceful game, but he was not up to the form displayed by him in previous, years. ; Linwood was without the services of \V. Cummings and E. Cummings. ' Sydenham played throughout with 14 men.

Linwood's first score was a try by Davis, who was given possession by Hirst after the forwards had dribbled the ball into Sydenham territory. At half-time the score was three to nil. In the second half Davis kicked a penalty, goal, and scored a second try after good play by Yates.

tllv del iUllU ” • Matches. Points. r —J ,Chp. Mcrivale .. .. Marists .. .. Old Boys .. .. Unwood .. . • University Albion .. .. Sydenham Christchurch .. wTdTl. .. 2 — — .. 2 — — .. 2 — — ..1—1 ..1—1 ■’ — — ■ 2 .. — — 2 for. agst. pts. 37 8 2 35 0 2 20 0 2 11 10 1 8 21 1 3 41 — 3 17 — — 20 —