RUGBY IN BRITAIN

Hokitika Guardian, 2 January 1930, Page 8

RUGBY IN BRITAIN

DOMINION’S TOUR ACTING AS TONIC. PAST SEASON REVIEWED, “Although there is again this season no invasion from overseas to be encountered,” writes H. It. McDonald in the “Daily Mail Year Book,” “our preparations for Hie visit of a British team to Australia and New- Zealand are acting as a cheery tonic on play and players. Such a tonic in both welcome and necessary with English Rugger, from an international point oi view, in a transition stage. It is many years since England called upon so many players for her international matches as. she cW last winter. There were 29 in all, but the youngsters who were given a chance in the later games suggest that good times are in store for the Old Country. When the problems of captaincy have been settled and a reliable stand-off half is found, our lost honours may be won back easily.

“Just at the moment Scotland, owing to improved forward play—J. M. Bannerman put up a Scottish record last campaign with 37 caps—and tthe possession of such brilliant three* as lan Smith, known as ‘The Flying Scotsman,’ and G. P. S. Macpherson. is top dog. There are signs, however, of a Welsh revival—with the assistance of Cambridge—while Ireland, in G. C. Stephenson, boasts perhaps the greatest match-winner in the four countries. Had Stephenson, who broke the world’s record for caps when playing in bis thirty-eighth international, been able to play against Scotland, the championship might easily belong at this present moment to ‘John Bull’s Other Island.’

“France, the fifth participant each season in the great international championship-, have proved a bit of a disappointment, but the French are not always able to .send their strongest team across the Channel. In club Rugger, where there has been a general levelling-up and an increase in the number of fifteens, no side stands out is some of the great eluib sides of the oast did. In many ways this is a mod thing for the game.

“With a truce called between tho nations on the vexed questions of the tame’s laws, all is quiet on the political front. With no change in tho laws for three years, clubs, players and ountries have been able o get on with the game and set their houses in >rder. But what-ever the immediate uture may have in store for the Eng’ish Rugby Unionists, their interests ’nd inspirations are sale in the hands >f the new president of the Rugby Union, Mr W. T. Pearce, the old Bristol half-back, who is the first UloiK'tershire man to attain the "real 1 ist i net ion in tne Rugby world.”