Dominion’s International Rugby Began Fifty-One Years Ago

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1935, Page 12

Dominion’s International Rugby Began Fifty-One Years Ago

HOW FIRST TEAM TO VISIT NEW SOUTH WALES WAS RAISED

A LTHOUGH he did not play in any international match, Edwin (“Ned.) Davy, Who, at the age of 87, died in Wellington recently, was a link with the brigin of New Zealand’s international Rugby. He was a member of the first fbbtball team that this country sent abroad. The first team from overseas to come to New Zealand came iron) New South Wales in 1882. The New Zealand Rugby Union did not exist then—it was not born until 1891—and there was no organisation for putting a New Zealand team into the field against the visitors, who played seven matches against provincial sides; they won four and lost three, Auckland and Wellington, were, played twice each. Both matches with Auckland were lost, both with Wellington were won. The New South Wales team lost to Otago, but beat Canterbury and also a combined Taranaki-Wanganui team. This tour led to the raising of the first Nevi Zealand team, to return the visit. It was the' Wellington Rugby Union that took the initiative in arranging for a New Zealand team to go to New South Wales in 1884; the Auckland, Canterbury, and Otago unions agreed to join with it for that purpose. The team was organised by a method very different from that which obtains in these days of progressive and selective trials. Each of the four unions con-

cerned was allotted a quota of representatives in the side, and each union chose its own players. It had been decided to send 19 players and-a manager. Auckland, Wellington, and Otago were allotted five players efich, Canterbury four, but a Canterbury man, W. V. Millton, was appointed captain. The team played eight matches in New South Wales, and won them all. It scored 167 points, and had only 1.7 scored against it. Its three matches with New South Wales it won 11-0)21-2, and 16-0. '• * * * There was no uniformity in the method of scoring in those days; many different unibns gave different values to goals and tries. New Zealand and New South Wales were nearer to the modern practice than Great Britain was. The Rugby Union of England, whose rules were followed by the other Home unions, did not give numerical values to goals and tries until 1886; previously, matches were, won by a. majority of goals, and it was only if the numbers of goals were equal or if no goal was kicked that the tries decided a match.' The touchdown for a try was simply for a try at goal. In 1886 the English Rugby Union decided that a goal should be worth three points and a try worth one point. But a few years before that the New South Wales Rugby Uniop had decided that in all its games a try should be worth two points, a goal from a try three points, and a goal from the field four points. So far as I can gather, the provincial unions in New Zealand did not enjoy uniformity of scoring points until they adopted the New South Wales system, which was followed in the matches played by the New South Wales team in New Zealand in 1882, and by the New Zealand team in New South Wales in 1884. x- * ■»

If the method of scoring points winch is followed by all the Rugby-playing countries to-day had been in force in 1884 the New Zealand team in . New South Wales would have sedred 192 points and have had 18 scored against it. It scored 42 tries and converted 17 of them, and eight goals from the field were kicked for it. The kicking of field-goals was a very important part of the play in those days, and players practised it assiduousjy. Only in one

of the eight matches did the New Zealand team fail to obtain such a goal. In one match, G. H. Helmore (Canterbury) drop-kicked two goals from the field. J. Warbrick (Auckland) “potted” a goal in each of three matches, two of these -games being against New South Wales. # « * The maul-in-goal was still part of ■. the game then. Another of the differences between the game of to-day and that in which New Zealand played its first international match ..was m the formation of a team. There were nine forwards, two half-backs, three threequarters, ahd one full-back. The backs were adaptable. I have not space enough to enumerate all their changes ... in position in the tour, but it may be . noted that the famous J. Taiaroa, who scored pine of the tries, played as centre three-quarter, wing threequarter, and half-back, and that Warbrick played sometimes as centre three- v quarter, sometimes as wing, and sometimes as full-back. For one of .the matches with New South Wales the half-backs were Helmore and H. Roberts—-the latter first of the distinguished half-backs of that name that Wellingtton has given to N ew , Zealand’s representative Rugby—and for the second they were Roberts and Taiaroa. In the third match with the State the half-backs were Taiaroa and a player who was a forward in all but one of the other games. Helmore played as a wing three-quarter in the two international matches in which he was not a half-back. ■» * # In one of the minor matches in - which Helmore and Roberts were the half-backs—that against Cumberland County—these two players scored five of the 10 tries, Helmore scoring three. ' Ned Davy had Taiaroa as his partner at half-back in two of the games putside the internationals, ahd in one\ of these minor matches (against 17 players of Sydney Suburbs) these half-backs - scored three tries. . ■ z ' *'' *•■ * But that team of 1884 was too successful on the field for the tour to be successful financially; the New South Wales public then, if seems, was not attracted by teams which won their matches easily. The New South Wales . Rugby Union handed over all the proceeds of the matches,less the cost of advertising and of gatekeepers, the profit of the eight matches amounting to £334. The unions in New Zealand which had organised the team had to ' pay the travelling and maintenance expenses of it, and these totalled about £2OO more than the receipts from the New South Wales union. So each of the four New Zealand provincial unions affected had to contribute about £5O each to the' making-up of the deficit. What a contrast with Rugby finances of to-day! ■' \ -'■ -< . A. L. C. \