NEW ZEALAND RUGBY

Taranaki Daily News, 25 July 1929, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND RUGBY

THE WING-FORWARD GAME

“A PEST, A BLOT, AND A HYBRID.

HOW IT CAME TO NEW ZEALAND

The following article from the Wellington Dominion, describing the evolution of the wing-forward, is reprinted because of its interest to Rugby players generally: —

“The original wing-forward was probablv what is now called in England a winging forward —i.e., a player who is not fond of the legitimate work of the scrum but hangs off as much as he can, and makes the raiding of the opposing backs his main purpose. A player in the New Zealand team of 1884 is described as a fast wing-forward, but it is not recorded that that combination made the playing of wing-forwards part of its system. In the mid-’eighties, wing-forwards were played by some districts. In 1885 Otago played them against Canterbury, in whose team wingers were not included. From that time forth wing-forwards were not played by Otago, but I believe that in 1886 J. E. Smith and J. AL King were played in that capacity by Wellington. About this time the game appears to have developed on different lines in the two Islands. In the South it became the general practice to play six backs and nine forwards, while in the North (although Wellington played two halves and nine forwards against the Englishmen in 188) the fashion grew in the direction of a pack of eight with seven backs, three of which were half-backs. This latter formation was played by Auckland in 1887, and by the Native team in 188. when setting out on its tour of the Old Land and Australia. The two islands stuck to their respective formations for some years. “ELLISON’S IDEA.” The late T. R. Ellison, in his book, tells us that in 1891, when playing half-back for his club, there was borne in upon him the necessity for the provision of protection for the half-back—-i.e., the rooter at the base of the scrum. He seems to have made some effort during the southern tour that year to put his idea to the test, .because in playing as one of three half-backs, it the Otago match,. though nominally is written that he and an opposing forward butted and bumped one another throughout the game. In 1892 Ellison put his idea into full execution, and his club (Poneke) became, in this island at least, the pioneer of the sevenscrum and wing-forward’s part (and an illegitimate part it has to be admitted), whose mission was to protect the scrum half-back, a position which was filled by J. Pudney, his protecting wing men being H. Lee and R. Oliphant. These three players filled the same positions in the Wellington representative team, which in that year, like the Poneke Club, had the distinction of having an unbeaten record. “In 1893 the New Zealand team for Australia adopted the same formation, which immediately became general throughout the Rugby Union world of Australia and New Zealand, except in the southern part of the South Island, where the New Zealand R.F.U. did not hold sway. In the meantime Otago developed a game of her own, playing a scrum half, two five-eighths and eight men in th scrum, which consisted of the now orthodox sevenscrum with the eighth man packed in somewhere on one side or the other of the two back men, I think. The Otago players developed a really pretty game, as was realised when, after coming into the fold, they played in Wellington in 1896. The New Zealand team in 1897 in New South Wales found themselves rather up against it. They won the first test match, but were heavily defeated in the second. For the third and final test they lay doggo, and without any warning indication unloosed the Otago game on their unsuspecting opponents, and won by a large margin. “CHARGING AND BUTTING.” “With the passage of time discontent with the practice of wing-forwards in charging and butting one another grew, and in 1901 a team was chosen to represent New Zealand against New South Wales in which there were seven scrummaging forwards, eight backs, but no wing-forward. In 1903 the Otago game seems to have been generally adopted in New Zealand, except that the eighth forward, instead of going into the scrummage, played as a wingforward. Thus that game has been in vogue in this country for a quarter of a century, and has successfully withstood all efforts to alter it. In Australia from 1893 to 1599 two wingforwards were always played, but in the latter year an English team playing the orthodox eight forwards, two half-backs and four three-quarter backs visited Australia, where the English formation was straightway adopted, and the scrapping and otherwise objectionable wing-forward relegated to oblivion from whence he will never be resurrected.

“England, Ireland, Scotland. Wales, France, South Africa, Australia and every other country in which the game is played, except New Zealand, play a scrum of eight forwards with no winger, and why our island country does not follow suit is hard to understand. “Our popularity abroad as well as our reputation for- sportsmanship suffers by reason of the pertinacity with which we stick to the despised wing-forward. Your old fashioned, dyed-in-the-wool Ru"beian looks with withering contempt upon a man who, not a back, does not put an ounce of weight into the scrum, and loafs on the side of the pack waiting for opportunities. It simpy isn’t done. And so long as we persisit in doing it, so long will our reputation for sportsmanship fall short of what we would like it to be.

“The wing-forward is unpopular from end to end of the country, and after our experience in South Africa the wonder is that the New Zealand R.F.U. Committee did not instruct its selectors to refrain from playing a man in that position. By failing to do so. the committee put the clock back, and the lesson of South Africa and our ignominious performances there will have to be retaught. For over twenty years we have been steadily having it demonstrated to us that three in front will beat two in front. Let us, therefore, put the wing-forward, variously described as a pest, a blot, a hybrid, an excrescence on the game, back into the scrum fro-i whence he came.”