the Lions at Wellington he missed touch more often than he found it. This crucifies forwards. Nepia rarely missed the line, and rarely did he waste any distance—those “torpedoes” consistently just went out. His kicking artistry was exemplified during those years when he could not kick out on the full except when in his own twenty-five. Nepia seemed to have the knack of skidding the ball into touch as the kick died. These may be very slender grounds for preferring Nepia, and I would be quite happy to accord each of these great players a permanent niche for posterity—and I am certain that most of my readers will also. In addition to the Scott-Nepia controversy the return of the All Blacks enabled the critics both amateur and professional, to have a Roman holiday at the expense of the team and particularly its management. No doubt national pride makes us wish we could roll out the red carpet and play “Here the conquering heroes come”, but because the team suffered several defeats I see no reason for the carping criticism which has unfortunately been allowed to descend to personalities. Now that the tour is over, there is a wonderful opportunity for the “I told you so” brigade, of whom most, no doubt, have conveniently forgotten that they, like the rest of us at the outset, looked upon this team as our best ever. I still think that perhaps it was our best ever. Certainly the opposition seems to have been the best we have faced in Britain, and I for one would like to join the Rugby Union official spokesmen and congratulate the team on a splendid showing. Most of the criticism aimed at the management has concerned test selections and team tactics. As we did not see the team play, and because we cannot guage what the opposition was, I feel that criticism of this kind is unfair, particularly when individual players are compared to illustrate points of criticism. I can see only one avenue for criticism of the management, and in my view it is a serious one. It must go without saying that the selection committee which chose the thirty players for the tour are the best available judges of rugby in the country. They were, in effect, the appointees of every player in New Zealand. It is reasonable to suppose that the team was not chosen haphazardly, and that each playing position was filled by the best suited to that posi-