THE WING FORWARD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18599, 21 June 1930, Page 20 (Supplement)

THE WING FORWARD

MR JAMES BAXTER PRECIPITATE i j AN AUSTRALIAN REBUKE I (Sydney “Referee'*) | The abrupt, outspoken, tnrust by Mr James Baxter, manager of the British , Rugby Union Team in terming the wing forward as played by New Zealand. a “cheat.” ha>s not commended itself to many Australian sportsmen. And possibly those in ms commanding positions in New Zealand Rugby have ; a similar thought on this matter. Mr Baxter, no doubt, unwittingly, overlooks the cardinal and unalterable fact that in describing the New Zealand wing forward as a cheat he is 1 charging the New Zealand Rugby ' Union Ayith shutting its eyes to something that is worse than a blot, that is, I to nurturing cheats, and therefore of : being cheats themselves. The charge can be construed in hardly any other J logical manner by men of judicial ; minds.

Rugby Union football, like cricket, is an English creation. Like cricket it has developed until it has become an Empire institution. And again, as is the case with cricket, the broad Empire of Sp" t in every British country accepts its xaw from the fountain head with minor alterations made to suit colonial conditions yet sanctioned by the creative and administrative authority in those laws. Thus we find the M.C.C. at Lord’s making and amending the laws of cricket, and the International Board doing the same in Rugby Union football. This is fitting for many reasons and notably to provide for unity in the game.

The authority of the Old Land in matters of this«sort is voluntarily admitted and acknowledged. But when it comes to the ethics of these games, the spirit of sportsmanship, the preservation of the ideals in and in administration neither Australians nor New Zealanders will take on ineir hats Ito Englishmen. They would not be I true Britishers if they did. It were well for the splendid men who hold the reins in different games in England to realise that this is so, that they have no right to assume that their dictums on the ethics of sport are to hold sway in domains beyond their own. if others just as capable in every direction of forming conclusions do not agree with them. Britain’s Debt to Original All macks I The Rugby Union game in Great [ Britain is under a very deep debt of gratitude to New Zealand. The 1905 All Black team managed by Mr George Dixon, of Auckland, and captained by that gallant soldier, David Gallaher, who laid down his life on the battlefields of France for England as well as his own country, regenerated Rugby in every part of the British Isles. Those wonderful fascinating men of New Zealand, showed English men new phases, new lights and shades in their game. They showed them that Rugby could be, and should be, the most beautiful co-ordinated game of all for real red-blooded men to play. They were so efficient in all the finished little arts of individual skill, and so perfect in blending their highly cultivated indvidualism into the machine, that they outclassed a big majority of the teams they met.

And what was the reward? These men so gallant in their spirit of adventure, so inspiring in their play, so manly under a tornado of vitriolic criticism by people who could not realise that they were seeing something which they had never dreamt to be possible, were targets for abuse. Some of the foremost newspapers in England published the most ridiculous articles putting forward ideas similar to those Mr Baxter has now after I twenty-five years seen fit to repeat that , the wing forward is a cheat. I The wing forward of 1904 was Dave ; Gallaher. whose shoes some of his critics of the time were not fit to shine, whose conception of the ethic.s of sportsmanship on the field of play was flawless and whose courage in preserving silence in the face of insults irom all angles was heroic. The essence of it all is that if the International Board in its wisdom considers the wings of the wing forward should be clipped the law ohouia toe , altered in the manner indicated in our Rugby Union columns to-day. While , the New Zealand wing forward keeps ' as ~iose to the laws as any other player i on the field and the referee sees that the vital laws are honored, it is, with all due respect to those who agree with Mr Baxter’s view, not wise, not sporting wise to attack New Zealand on this matter.

The All Blacks twent-five years ago replaced Rugby Union football on the map of Great Britain as a great game. They put it on a wider map of the wider world even than America. They helped to keep the flag flying in Australia, when Great Britain’s Unions were inactive and unconcerned. They showed that the British Public would patronise high-class games.

Financial Side in International Rugger They made close on £IO.OOO on their tour which had been used in nurturing Rugby in New Zeaiand and Australia. J They took all the risks of that very wonderful adventure, and for their j pains were not. invited again to Great • Britain for twenty years' And even i then all the wonaenul money paia by [ the magnificent British Public in sport —and mere is no finer puoiic in tne world —was gathered in by the English Union itself 1 A few thousands of that money would have been a wonderful thing for the Unions of the Hemisphere of the South to use in spreading the gospel of their game and of the perfect spirit In sport it stands for. I We know Mr Baxter is a great English sportman with the finest possible ideas on his game. But, we hold that in coming into the open as he has done to attack the wing forward he has been wrong in his views, and not diplomatic.