AUSTRALIAN RUGBY TEAM WAS CHEATED, CLAIMS CRITIC

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 October 1947, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN RUGBY TEAM WAS CHEATED, CLAIMS CRITIC

(N.Z.P.A.—Reuter— Copyright.)

Recd. 6.30 p.m. London, Oct. 6 John Macadam, in the “Daily Express,” says: The Australian Rugby Union players demonstrated they are a fast-moving and competent fifteen with several weaknesses on the tactical side but none on the sporting side. Yet to our horror we discover they have been subjected to the grossest chicanery by home-grown internanationals who should be taught better. The Wallabies in a recent game were robbed as clearly as if they had been hung on the end of a gun and their pockets gone through. The Australians, scrummaging athletically but strictly honestly, had the mortification of seeing the opposition scrum-half nicely placed on the blind side of the referee, but the half put the ball almost invariably at an angle into the scrum so that, all his hooker had to do was lift a foot and let it pass under to his second line. The fact that such tactics were chosen to be inflicted on a side of distinguished, visitors, and particularly one that had been maligned for healthy, legtimate masculinity by myopic morons, is particularly melancholy.