After Many Lean Years Welsh Rugby Footballers Hope To Capture The Championship.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18644, 22 December 1928, Page 12

After Many Lean Years Welsh Rugby Footballers Hope To Capture The Championship.

SPORTING NOTES FROM LONDON.

(Special to the “Star.”) LONDON, October 25. Welsh Rugby football has passetjl through a very lean period, but last season there were indications of a marked revival, and now the prospects are so good that there is a distinct possibility of the international championship being gained. Representative matches do not begin until the new year, or at least until December 31. when Ireland oppose France in Paris, but already the strength of the national sides is being weighed, and, if Wales make the best of their players, they should field a very fine side. The main trouble seems to be in the selection of the fifteen. The authorities appear to confine—or nearly so—their choice to the clubs at home, and ignore the brilliant players at Cambridge and elsewhere. And it is just these players who are needed to lift Wales out of the rut. The policy of the selectors has paid well so far as the pack is concerned. The forwards last winter were about the best set which represented any of the counties. They were not only keen, honest scrummagers, but they got the ball, and showed all the best methods in f’he loose and in the line outs. But the Welsh club backs have been lacking in enterprise and originality. Instead of creating scoring chances by passing advances, they have schemed to keep the play tight. On the face of it, these tactics amounted to a confession of their own limitations. In effect they said: “If we get the ball out, we may let the other fellows in, and it is safer to rely on the forwards.” In these circumstances, centre three-quarters have overdone the kicking to touch, which in modern Rugby is only used for defensive purposes, and the wings have had few chances. If Wales will go to Cambridge for the basis of their back division, their prospects are bound to undergo an immediate improvement. There is a ready-made pair of halves in Maurice Turnbull and H. M. Bowcott. The latter received his blue last winter as a centre, and he has also appeared at full-back, but fly-half is his best position. There is also Windsor Lewis for scrum half. He is now playing extremely well in London hospital Rugby* There are other clever backs outside Welsh club football, and, moreover, they have not been smitten with the safety-first tactics which have caused so much of the play to run On stilted lines. Indeed, they have been brought up. like English outsides to throw the ball about, and take risks, and it has been proved conclusively that this adventurous style of play is the winning rugger football. Advance of German Soccer. It is only within the past five or six

years that Association football has been taken up seriously in Germany, but during this time giant strides have been made. Proof of this has just been given by a team from Berlin in a match in London. They met a side representing the Isthmian League, one of the chief English amateur competitions, and the visitors won in most convincing style by four goals to one. Indeed, their football was astonishing, not only in its correctness, but in the natural aptitude of the men. Obviously they had been most thoroughly coached, and, as will be imagined, their tutors have been old British professionals. One of the chief coaches in Germany is Jimmy Lawrence, the old Newcastle United goalkeeper, who, having retired from the game, became manager of Preston North End. He has now been about three years in Germany, and it is admitted that his influence over the game has been extraordinary. He has a dozen teams under him, and all are personally coached, not only on the field, but in the theory of the game in the lecture room. As might be expected, the game is being fostered in most thorough and methodical style. Indeed, the system is similar to that adopted in all forms of sports and pastimes in America. In every case the object is to make specialists of the players. For instance, in some way or other all the best players over an area are encouraged to gather at the headquarters of that area, and play for clubs to which they are allotted. The assurance is given that the men are bona-fide amateurs, but how this can be so it is difficult to realise. To us this system is undisguised poaching, and there are definite rules to prevent it. Moreover, should one move from one town to another for the purpose of playing with a club, he is immediately under suspicion. Probably in declaring that the players are amateurs, the Germans mean that they are not paid for playing, brit there is no doubt that they are paid in order that they may play, and the difference is too subtle for us to appreciate. How anxious the authorities arc that the game should continue to develop on the right lines was indicated by the appearance of two of the chief executive officials of Germany at Liverpool at the international match between England and Ireland. They frankly stated that they had come over in the hope that they might pick up some hint? from the play that might be valuable. Unfortunately, an incident spoilt the game as a spectacle, Barrett, the England centre-half, being injured ten minutes after the start. For the rest of the match England were not only a player short, but the side had to be remade. But England won by two goals to one, thus gaining the first success since April, 1927.