ALL BLACKS’ TOUR.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 16152, 29 November 1924, Page 16 (Supplement)

ALL BLACKS’ TOUR.

PLAYING WALES TO-DAY. GREAT STRUGGLE EXPECTED. People who are thinking and talking Rugby in Hie many parts of the globe at the moment will lie most concerned with the historic meeting at Swansea this afternoon between the International fiftee.ns of New Zealand and Wales. Many will hearken back to that Saturday afternoon of Decem-

her 16, 1905, at Cardiff, when Wales, skippered by the illustrious Gwyn Nicholls made everlasting fame by defeating Dave Gallaher and ills New Zoaland stalwarts by a try to nIL Can Porter and his men avenge that defeat? There are many reasons why the prospects of the All Blacks the Second should be sounded in a favourable key. Unlike their predecessors of nineteen years ago they are tackling the elect of Welsh Rugby at a time when the New Zealanders are at the top pitch of their form. Good as it may be, critics on the spot have proclaimed that the standard has waned since the days of Nicholls, Gabe, Morgan. Bush and the other giants of pleasant recollection. Still with fourteen Internationals in the team which will line out, once again to the singing of “The Land of My Fathers," Taffy has every reason to look with favour upon the prospects. The experience of a more than half completed tour has indicated that the All Blacks are a vastly superior team with a dry ball to what they are on holding turf with a greasy sphere. If they get the conditions favourable this afternoon New Zealand should keep the banner of success remaining at the top. A wet ground, on the other hand, as happened at Newport, will cause them more concern, but, again, they should pull through. The keenest Interest of the tour thus far is being shown in the result of this historic clash of Rugby giants. The result will be through by 10 o’clock in the morning when it will be posted on the board outside the Waikato Times office.

DEVON AND AFTERWARDS! After the All Blacks had got home against Devon, the Arst match of their tour, by 11—0 a Daily Mail writer penned the following:— We had also been told that the All Blacks were the Attest men in the Ave continents, perfect in condition in a way Impossible to mere Englishmen. But actually the Devon team lasted better.

They were, as fast at the end as at the beginning, whereas the All Blacks were showing signs of weariness. And the county team got the ball more often out of the scrums and used, their feet In the loose In a way that their opponents found impossible to emulate.

This Is not to say that the All Blacks proved to be anything but a fine team, a very One team, who assuredly will be even liner in a few weeks’ time. But Devon isn't England; and there is little reason to fear that our visitors will sweep from one end of the country to the other in a blaze of unbroken triumph as the 1005 team did, and as so many pessimists anticipated the present team would do. Because New Zealand won by no

more than 11 points to 0 against the county which their predecessors in 1905 annihilated by 55 points to < there is already a tendency to compare them very unfavourably with the first of the All Blacks.

This is not quite fair. Nineteen years ago English Rugby was in a very had way. We had not realised that it was In a bad way, because we had nothing with which to compare it. The New Zealanders came 1o “show us up,” they taught us a bitter lesson, and English Rugby benefited by that lesson. The results of tnat lesson helped Devon to make so fine a fight on Saturday. (Like many another writer, at Home and abroad, the tune will require to be pitched in a different key now.)

WAR CRY STILL IN VOGUE. At Gloucester C. G. Porter, captain of the "All Blacks,” gave an interview to a pressman, who desired to know the reason for the team's warappointment was rife in the eounlry on that account. “Who said we were not giving the war cry?” answered Porter, and on being informed, said that it was not true that they were not again to give the famous war-cry. When the cry was given at the Devon match some criticism was published to the effect that Taylor, the South African cricket captain, did not go on the field of play willi a “wild-cat cry.” Porter stated that they were not narrow-minded and realised at once that it was only the opinion of the few and decided thit the cry would be given on every occasion when it was asked for, arid they would most certainly give it before the international games.” So the “Land of My Fathers” will not be on its own this afternoon I

The remaining games of the All Blacks tour are:— November 29 v. Wales (Test). Dec. 2 v. Llanelly. Dec. 6. v. East Midlands. Dec. 11 v. Warwickshire. Dec. 13 v. Combined Services. Dec. 17 v. Hampshire. Dec. 27 v. London Counties. Jan. 3 v. England (Test) Two games will take place in France in January. The All Blacks’ record To date is:— Sept. 13 v. Devon, won 11—0. Sept. 18 v. Cornwall, won 29 —0. Sept. 20, v. Somerset, won G—o. Sept. 25 v. Gloucester, won 6—o. Sept. 27 v. Swansea, won 39—3. Oct. 2, v. Newport, won 13—10. Oct. 4, v. Leicester, won 27-—O. Oct. 8, v. North Midlands won 40 —3. Oct. it v. Cheshire, won 18—5. Oct. 15, v. Durham, won 43—7. Oct. 18, v. Yorkshire, won 42 —4. Oct. 22 v. Lancashire, won 23—0. Oct. 25 v. Cumberland, won 41—0. Nov. 1 v. Ireland (Test), won 6—o. Nov. 5 v. Ulster, won 28—6. Nov. 8 v. Northumberland, won 27—i Nov. 12 v. Cambridge, won s—o. Nov. 15 v. London Counties won 31—6. Nov. 20 v. Oxford, won 33—1". Nov. 22 v. Cardiff, won 16—8. 1 Points for, 454, against 71,

HARSH WORDS. BRITISH TEAM IN SOUTH AFRICA. UNPLEASANT INCIDENTS IN FINAL TEST. The British team which recently toured South Africa incurred sharp criticism for the play of some of its members in the fourth test, which it lost by 16 points to 9. “J.N.1.,” who wrote the report of the match in the Cape Times, says:— “There was a period in the seoond half of the test match at Newlands when Britain looked as though she might save the game. I would have been extremely sorry had this happened, and so would all fair lovers of sport. In the worst of us there is always a fear that unless we play the game in life misfortune at some time or another will come into our lives, and so in sport we have a certain feeling within us that if we play fair, no matter what the other team may do, no matter how it may take advantage, reward will follow. Had Britain played well enough to ,win on Saturday I should have felt that, after all, fair play in sport does not bring its just reward, and, further, one would have been Inclined to become a disciple of the principle that honesty after all is not the best policy. “Had Britain managed to win on Saturday I should almost have become one of those persons who assert that it is best to be in with the devil than out.

“Had South Africa not played half as well she would still have deserved to triumph, not entirely because of her superiority in the art of playing Rugby but because certain Britons — and I am sorry to have to say it — seemed to forget that fair and honest tactics are a virtue in all games. I am sorry to have to put it down in black and white, that there were players in the ranks of our guests who seemed to be of the opinion that fisticuffs and dangerous hacking are part of the game of Rugby. “In professional football, both Soccer and Northern Union, men have been ordered off the field for much less than what certain British forwards included in their repertoire of supposed sporting Rugby. In the amateur handling code we look to those who play it to give and take hard knocks —not to retaliate with fists. And this is what certain of the Britishers were guilty of. Now, as one who has heard professional Rugby in England described as a travesty of true sport and not a game Saturday's game, in which two or three Britishers were implicated, would not have been tolerated in professionalism. The offenders would have had to march 1 No referee would have dared to overlook such unpleasant incidents as we saw at Newlands. It was a pity that at an international match the onlookers should have shown their disapproval

of certain unsportsmanlike methods by ‘booing’ one of our guests, but people who attend football matches are but human —and I cannot say, being human myself and liable to voice my feelings, that the outburst was not justified. Blood is thicker than water, and I cannot help it; I am sentimentally British—but after what I saw at Newlands I should have been a poor sportsman had 1 wanted Britain to triumph. I prefer to side with good sportsmanship—that is why I am delighted to write of South Africa’s fine and deserving victory.”