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RUGBY REFLECTIONS

SPREAD OF GAME Spirit of New Zealand Football “Diogenes,” the sports writer of the ‘Edinburgh Evening News,’ discourses on the spread of the game in various parts of the world. “Diogenes” writes — “An excellent story comes from New Zealand. Two clubs were playing a championship game. The favourites disappointed in the first half, and their coach got the men into their dressing room at the interval and talked to them. The opposing side were next door and heard every word that was said. Their coach was a man of few words. On this occasion he was shorter and drier than ever. ‘I don’t need to tell you what to do,’ he said; ‘you know.’ Resolved v. Casual “The story has a certain significance. The second coach embodied the spirit of New Zealand Rugby football. When a New Zealand team first came to this country it was pitted, in the first instance, against Devon County. ‘What a shame,’ some people said, ‘making them play Devon, the champion county!’ The New Zealanders won by 55 points to 4. Like the second team in the story, they knew. A couple of months later the New Zealanders played their first international, Scotland being met at Inverleith. It was objected by some fastidious people that the visitors trained like a professional Soccer team. “Of course they did. They were here to win matches. They beat Scotland by staying powers, plus combination. Nothing else was to be expected. The New Zealanders may or may not have been a band of brothers, but at all events they knew one another to the last ounce of capacity. Some of the Scotsmen hadn’t been introduced to brother members of the team when they took the field. This little bit of ‘history,’ I take it, may be repeated in 1935, and someone will sententiously remark, ‘Oh, it’s only a game!’ How Stories Grow “A Spanish dictator went, the story used to be told, to see a Rugby match. The game had just been introduced to the Peninsular. This particular match was one long battle between the forwards. The poor dictator was mystified. He could not make it out at all. So he asked why, instead of having only one ball for so many men, each of the players could not have a ball. The story began to perambulate. It came back from Italy. Mussolini was the culprit this time. And then someone discovered that the story was first told of an old lady in England. ‘ ' '

“A new version went back to New Zealand from 'Australia when first the All Blacks went to Sydney. They found four football codes in vogue in Sydney with one point in common. The public must see the ball continuously. The All Blacks, of course, played regulation Rugby, so far at all events as the forwards were concerned. E. E. Booth, one of the original All Blacks used to tell of how he was approached by a local reporter, who asked in an anxious tone, ‘Say, can't they find tne ball?” He thought they were looking for it in the scrum. Canada, then America “Not so long ago, Australia was to New Zealand in Rugby football pretty much what New Zealand was to Austraia in cricket, but things have changed. New Zealand v. Australia has ranged itself in the sports calendar at the Antipodes with New Zealand v. South Africa, and when last the two last-mentioned dominions met they were represented as playing for the championship of the world. It seems a very long shot, but they are said to be in New Zealand visioning the time when Canada will come into the game and join in a four dominions’ tournament. The New Zealanders are to take in Canada in their next tour, and a New Zealander, who is playing a part in the development of Rugby in the Eastern States of America, is reported to be endeavouring to arrange for an All-Blacks’ incursion into U.S.A. territory. An American caller at Market Street some time ago assured me that the present generation would see Britain and America meeting at football. The visit of the Cambridge fifteen to the States on the spring of this year had, he said, given an immense impetus to the game. Incidentally, the individual player who most impressed was R. C. S. Dick, the man the S.R.U. Committee made a Scotsman of. The Substitute who Scored “While the Rugby game is getting a footing in North America, the Soccer code is carrying all before it in South America. Eighty-five thousand persons paid for admission to the return game between Argentina and Uruguay, and the number was restricted to 85,000 because the ground could not hold more. Various notabilities, including a president or two. were present, and to permit one of them taking his seat the referee held up the game. A correspondent of mine, writing from Buenos Aires, asks what would happen if this were done at home. Possibly people would go home and pen letters to the Press asking ‘What’s wrong with the referee?” “But they do other funny things in South American football. For instance, they commit themselves, neck and crop, to the vicious principle of substitution. In the game in question one

of the visiting forwards kicked an opposing half-back and was ordered off the field. His place was taken by a reserve, although the referee maintained that the team to which he defaulter belonged should continue with ten men. "One of the Argentine forwards complained at half-time that he was feeling sick. He retired from the game and was then replaced by a reserve, who scored the only goal of the match. This man became a national hero. He was photographed for the Press. So, also, were his mother and his sweetheart. The mother, interviewed, said her son could not sleep when an international match was on the tapis. He rose early and took long walks. It would do some of our players at home a world of good if they were afflicted as this Argentinian is; that is to say, if they went off their sleep, rose early, and took long walks. How wonderfully fit they would be.”

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19341117.2.82.1

Bibliographic details

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 16

Word Count
1,033

RUGBY REFLECTIONS Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 16

RUGBY REFLECTIONS Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 16