ALL BLACKS’ TOUR

Hokitika Guardian, 19 July 1928, Page 2

ALL BLACKS’ TOUR

SPRINGBOK TACTICS. ALL BL-ACK’S INTERESTING LETTER. WELLINGTON, July 17. “Tho wonderful line kicking of the players here is going hard against us,” states a member of the All Blacks’ party in the course of a letter received in Wellington. “In the game we lost with Cape Town the opposing backs got all the ball and found touch all the time until they were down on our line. They never open up the game until they are within striking distance. However, when our players get properly fit and used to the conditions here it should lie a different story. All the teams go into camp a few days before we arrive, so you can see what we arc up against.” The writer states that since their arrival in South Africa the All Blacks had had a wonderful time. They enjoyed tho three days in Durban, but the train journey to Cape Town was a big strain on them and they did not feel very much like playing football when they arrived. In the second match of the tour, won by Cape Town, the All Blacks had “all tho rotten luck imaginable, but were fairly, and squarely beaten on tho day.” The forwards, the writer continues, lacked the condition to produce those great passing bursts for which they are famed. They' were beaten in the ,Scrums and consequently the backs were starved. Lance Johnson, it is stated, played a fine game and looked certain for a place in 1 the Tests. Tli© team was given a wonderful time during the week spent in Cape Town. Autograph hunters were out in full force and it was nothing to see from 40 to 50 youngsters waiting outside the hotel to get signatures from tho players. The team left Cape Town on a Monday for Kimberley, where they arrived on Tuesday night and played on Wednesday. “We visited the diamond mines,” states the writer, “but they were not too keen on throwing them away.” The players who had not had a game were given tlieir chance at Kimberley in the match against Criqualaml AYest. The ground was like Tinakori road, tho writer remarks, and there was not a blade of grass on it. The All Blacks had a very hard gime, but were easily more than nine points the better team. “From Kimberley the team went on to Johannesburg, leaving on Thursday and arriving next day. It was anticipated that tho game against Transvaal would bo a very hard one and public opinion favoured the Transvaal side.”

SATURDAY’S TEST. Fourteen of tho selected eighteen were in the side which was defeated in tho first test. Scrimshaw is the other man. Unless he has gone on to the injured list in the last, few days it seems that Stewart is preferred to him as wing forward. Another reason might lie that the New Zealanders are going to try the eight-man scrum again. Tho new players chosen to train are Rush brook, Nicholls, M’AVillianis and AVard. If Nicholls gets into the fifteen lie will probably displace Strang, as Johnson, the other five-eighth, has evidently l>een tho most reliable of tho men played in that position. Rushbrook has done .well in tho matches in which he played, and might bo showing more dash than Robilliard or Gren’side. It is hard to say which mam he will replace if ho plays in. the test. M’AVillianis narrowly missed a game in the first test, and AA’ard must bo getting into his best form. Swain, Hatley, M. Brownlie, Alley, Finlavson, Stewart and Hazlett seem to be certainties. so it looks as if the hist place in tim forwards will rest between M’AV.illianis and AVard. Lindsay is the only full-back selected and Dailey tlio only half, though tho latter would liavo had opposition, if Kilby had not boon injured.

Harvey is very unlucky. He was ill on the 1924 tour and played in only a few' -games, and on this year’s tour he played only in the first game, injuries and two attacks of influenza keeping him off the field ever since. Harvey’s a.lkseneo must throw a- strain on the other lock, Alloy. Of the other players not selected for next Saturday’s tost APGregor, Kilby, 0. Brownlie and Burrows are known to he injured, and there may be others.