RUGBY FOOTBALL

Hokitika Guardian, 8 May 1930, Page 2

RUGBY FOOTBALL

england-scotland match

MEN WHO WILL VISIT NEW

ZEALAND

LONDON, March 21

In the English Rugby team which played Scotland on Saturday there were six players who will be going to New Zealand with the touring team. There were:—J. S. R. Reeve (threequarters), R. S. Spong (half-back), W. H. Sobey (half-back),. 11. Rew, B. H. Black, and P. Howard (forwards). W. H. Welsh, who played forward for Scotland, is also a member of the touring team.

The game was a pointless draw, and so the Calcutta Cup is left in the guardianship of Scotland.

In ‘all the accounts of the match Sobey and Spong are mentioned for their part in the passing movements. “Sobey got the ball away to Spong like lightning,” says the Observer’s correspondent, “and usually with remarkable , accuracy. Spong sent the ball out to his three-quarters continually, and there was nothing, wrong with his passes either. Where Spong was not so successful was in making openings before be passed. In lact, he' played too stereotyped a game to tie successful against these /partieuim opponents. “Sobey’s defence was splendid, and tiis solo efforts in attack were always telling. The one run in the match that stands out .was one of Sobey's when he darted away like a Has*, threaded his ,way through the Scottish three-quarters, and, gathering speed as he ran, headed for the line, That he was brought down on the line was bad luck, and it was also bad luck for England that his pass, given as lie fell on the line, was fumbled by a colleague. It was an effort that deserved a try—perhaps the only one of which that could be said.”

SPONG CRITICISED

The Daily Mail correspondent writes as follows:

“At scrum-half. W. H. Sobey was very good indeed in every, way, but the triangle of stand-off-half and centres was definitely bad. R. S. Spong is a great; worker—he puts his whole heart int'd the game, and it sefems ungracious to criticise him. .For all that, he will never be a good stand-off-half. He annot time his passes correctly, and when he does he jerks ,the ball unexpectedy across his body when his centre is often unsighted and unprepared. . •

“No three-quarter line can hope to go smoothly into action, behind such a player, and part of the blame for the complete ineffectiveness of the English centres must rest with Spong.”

ONE BRILLIANT FIGURE

. Says the Times: = “On Saturday one man—W. H. Sobev—thq .English’ scrummage-half, did all but a-hieve the big thing, and his wonderful breakaway froili a scrummage on the half-way line in within a foot <sf the goal line deserved a try if ever an individual effort did. Scotland, one. feels sure, would not have grpdged their opponents the victory if this had been the deciding effort, especially in a game in which, all through, Sobey had been the one brilliant figure in attack. Sobey’s play and gnllantry,' for he had many unpleasant jnoments in the thick of tnings, along with the splendidly determined scrummaging and rushing of both packs—neither ever quite shook each other off, though the Englishmen were rather the better together and t<he -cleaner heelers—were the only things that warmed the huge crowd, a good quarter of whom must have been Scotsmen to the usual enthusiasm.”