THE ALL BLACKS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 July 1924, Page 9

THE ALL BLACKS.

THE CAME IN ENGLAND. METHODS LITTLE CHANGED. ENGLISH WRITER’S REVIEW. “Taking the game in Great Britain generally,” says a writer in the Birmingham Post, “there is every reason to express pleasure at its progress. One would hardly say that it has reached the pre-war standard set by the New Zealand touring side in 1905. One can regard that year now as an interesting criterion in forming contrasts in view of the visit next September. They take their football very seriously in New Zealand, and to every playing member of to-day one would commend a perusal of their history and the adoption of their maxims, which have been practised with an uncommon success. Such a variety of strategy can be employed in Rugby football that it requires close collaboration to make it effective. MODEL OF ORGANISATION. “In England we are, perhaps, too casual; the Saturday afternoon game for the game’s sake suffices, with, perhaps, a stimulated effort at serious training for a couple of days prior to a match. In Now Zealand they have a perfect organisation which makes its influence felt upon lads in school, whom it watches with the eyes of an anxious parent. The system is so arranged that stage by stage the schoolboy, as he grows in years and skill, is brought higher and higher, until he becomes a national player. The training hall is one of the most prominent features of their union and club system, and is undoubtedly one of the principal aids of encouraging young players to fostering the spirit of enthusiasm; and to perfecting ideas for the better development of the game on its practical side. And here we have the basis of successful colonial football, and can contrast it with our I own. They practise tactics—which are the soul 'of Rugby football. A team may be composed of stars, and then be beaten by an average side if that side employs sound tactics. And combination is not tactics; it is assumed, and the tactics are a refinement of it. When clubs understand that there is a severe limit to what is possible by individual effort, or by combination in its elementary forms, then more study will be given to tactics, and club football will advance. “SUPERMEN?” “Some clubs are still trying to evolve by playing five threequarters and seven forwards, a result of the last New Zealand tour, when the visitors’ adoption of a wingforward—not the wing-forward spoken of to-day, for he is really a winging forward created dismay, and their extraordinary aptitude for securing ‘a shooting’ possession of the ball from the scrums caused some doubts as to the legitimacy of their play. It is stated that the team to commence its tour here in September will be qiore powerful than its predecessor in the forward rank, and one can only wonder whether we ' are to see ctipermen, for on the previous occasion there wer e five forwards over 6ft. in height, and the weights were 15 stone, 14 stone 61b, while the average was 13 stone. BACKS VERY FAST. “The presence of the New Zealanders will give the game an added impetus, and in reflecting on* this last season’s play, one I wonders how the victorious English side would have fared against that all-conquer-ing colonial team of 1905. Our play is traditionally the same now as it was then. We have made no great effort to emulate New Zealand methods. As an example, our back play is often very pretty, but ineffective, and we wonder why. The New Zealander never parts with the ball until the moment of tackle on the principle that the tackler is a defender out of action as far as stopping (he line is concerned. As a team, one would rather p|pmp for their superior cleverness, their general exercise of strategy and tactics, but whether they were faster than this year’s English and Scottish threequarter lines is doubtful. Speed has been the essence of our game, and what an improvement the New Zealanders will find in France, who are now keen opponents.” COLONIAL’S OPINION. But A. C. (“John”) Wallace, the Oxford University Rugby Union player and Scottish international, thinks more of the capacity of the Home teams. In a letter to friends in Australia, he gives some interesting details of the recent England v. Scotland match—in which he played. Wallace states that they were beaten in the forwards, but had their luck held they would have won. Slight errors were responsible for Scotland’s defeat. | Wallace says that the English team seldom missed an opportunity that presented itself, and their tactics, both between forwards and backs, were better than Scotland s. He thought that English would put up a fine game against the All Blacks. V\ allace toured New Zealand with the 1921 New South Wales team, when he played with the University Club. He afterwards joined up with G.P.S. Old Boys.