Club Rugby In New Zealand

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1934, Page 11

Club Rugby In New Zealand

DEFICIENT IN SKILFULNESS BASED ON A PROPER GROUNDING

YVHAT can be done to improve our ’’ club Rugby? This question, discussed several times already in the current; football season, obtrudes ‘ itself upon one’s notice after a perusal of various comments on the play of the All Black team against the Rest of New Zealand, for the faults in the play irl that match are faults developed in representative players in general by the play in club games. It is a case in which one is a reflection of the other, an exception from the not uncommon experience that a representative team may not truly reflect the standard of play in its members’ club teams. New Zealand is still producing Rugby material which, in its general physical standard, is as good as any other in the world, but it is not training that material as it should be trained.

Broadly, the defects of the game in New Zealand to-day are an insufficiency of skilfulness based on a proper grounding in the mechanics of. the game, and a lack of quickness of thought by players when they are on the field. There are exceptions to the rule,'but the exceptions are so few in proportion to the general body of players that New Zealand is not producing national-representative teams which can keep pace with the development of representative players in other countries. If the exceptions to the rule were more i numerous the errors made by selectors would not be of so much moment as they have been this season. * * * , - One of the causes of the decline in the general standard is that there are too many clubs in the first-grade competitions in every ope of the main ana secondary centres in the Dominion. It is too easy for players to get into firstgrade teams before they have had a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of the game. Backs, for example, are proriioted to first-grade teams before they have so learned how to take or give a pass properly and quickly, that this has become second nature. As soon as they are in the first-grade

teams they think that they have nothing more to learn in the mechanics, of the game; they become intent on polishing their equipment without realising that the equipment is lop-sided and’ incomplete. Much the.same.remark applies to their kicking. Forwards get' into first-grade teams before they . have, properly cultivated the mechanic? of. dribbling and handling the ball or of scrummaging, rucking,, line-out play, and so on. . , . /. t

Many coaches of teams in first-grade club competitions know .whgt is at the root of the trouble, but they are impelled to swim with the current;,their labours in trying to dam it are quite ineffective. Many a coach has remarked to me that. it ’is hopeless to try to teach a player in a' first-grade competition anything about the fundamentals of the game,- because the player cannot be persuaded that he does not know them all. Anything that the average first-grade player desire? to learn from a coach is something in the nature of "stunts,” regardless of the fact that no “stunt”, can be successful' unless it is based oh adeptriSss in hahdling and. kicking, the ball and on . quickness of thought. T here are firstr grade players who are not of that ers who. always seek -to learn from knowledgeable people -where they can improve themselves, where they have done anything wrong s .in,a game—but these are the players of the -kind thatrises to the front in club aind representative Rugby in any company, and they, are not numerous enough. x

One c?n understand .quite well why Rugby unions and clubs are loath to admit that there is any deterioration in the general standard of the game. They need to bo jolted into resolution to amend, things. For that reason it is well that Australia has shown New Zealand, this season, that its own standard is progressive while New Zealand’s is retrogressive. A few more experiences such as that would do New Zealand Rugby a power of good. • '.

These notes are not in any sense a diatribe. I am not pessimistic about New Zealand Rugby, because I think it is only a matter of time before players and'club officials see these things more-clearly for themselves,- and bring about an improvement. But l do wish that club and union officials in the Dominion, who have been lulled into some inertia by a habit of thought springing, from New Zealand’s past achievements in Rugby, awaken in time to help in reviving the standard of play in this country before the South Africans visit us. South Africa, facet? by a Rugby problem of a different aspect, is more alert to if. But that is a point, to which I may return sometime next week. A.L.C.