N.Z. TEST TEAM

Hokitika Guardian, 18 June 1930, Page 2

N.Z. TEST TEAM

AN OTAGO CRITIC

“Full-hack,”- the well-known and authoritative football critic of the “Otago Daily Times,” indulges in some pointed criticism of the Ah Black team which has been selected for the Tost match,

“After looking over the names o>f the 19 players from whom the 17 All Blacks to play against the British team will be selected,” lie writes

‘followers of the game must experience a distinct sense of disappoint

.mint. We talk about the high istand>rd of the game in New Zealand and the nu in hers trim play it, hilt the selectors of New Zealand teams have now rudely damped our enthusiasm. They say, in effect, that at the present clay we have no promising young footballers, and then taking the line of least resistance they rely on what may without exaggeration be termed a team of veterans. , .

NOT GOOD JUDGES

“I shall endeavour to prove that tli selectors are not good judges'of fo ball and that it is time they,- with some of the veterans, Were retired to the bank to give younger .inert, both players and selectors, an . opportunity to show their worth. Of the 19 players provisionally selected we nave eight who went to England as far back as 1924 and nine who went to South Africa in 1928. Hart, Oliver, Cottrell, Steere, and Batty are, therefore, what may be termed the on!/ now players, although Cottrell and Steere went to Australia with the New •Zealand team in 1929, “It is to the members of the team Mint went to England in 1924 that I desire to refer.” “Full-back” continues .“It is common knowledge that Nepia Mill, Nicholls, and Irvine, at any rate have time and again stated that they ’’id finished with the game, Cooke, moreover, lias played in turn for Auckland, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa, apd is mw in Wellington, and lie, too, has stated more than once that he was giving up the game. Porter, moreover, could not get into the team which went to Australia last year. He was reckoned to be done, so far as football was concerned.

ROBBING YOUTH OF

ITS CHANCE

‘‘Now 1 do not wish it to be thought that these veterans who have come oack are not playing good football. What I want to state, and to state most emphatically, is that they and others will most probably give tne game bast this year, and that through die instrumentality of the selectors they have lobbed many capable young players, with plenty of football in front of them, of ever having a chance of playing against an international side. Will any follower of the game

claim that we have not young players in the Dominion who could fill the positions allotted to these veterans ? And let me at this point congratulate both Hai t and Oliver on having obtained a chance of inclusion in the team. Is there no young player who could .supplant Porter? No five-eight who could take the place of Nieholls? No full-hack as good as Nepia? No half-hack as clever as Mill, who is brilliant on attack hut not brilliant on defence?

The position is absurd. We have young promising players all over the Dominion, but the selectors stick 'he veterans. The famous saying t' 1 - the next hardest thing to getting h-' an Australian cricket team is to get out of it again can well he applie' to our New Zealand representsti" Ril'diy teams. “Then, take Irvine. TTe had nctu-

if memory serves aright, dropped out of the game, hut he comes hack, and a younger player with, as I have stated, p'enty of football in front of him, stands on the bank.

LIVING IN THE PAST,

“The notion of tin* selectors is not uoing to help nur football, and they have, to mv mind, shown a hopeless lack of initiative,” he continues. “Our football lives in the (future ; the selectors are living in the past. I know . from past experience that the New

Zealand selectors resent any criticism on their selections, nor do they welcome suggestions. Might 1 humbly .u limit to them, however, a suggestion that for one of the Tests at any rate a completely new and different New Zealand team should be selected? I viil go further and suggest to the vfanageineiit Committee of the New Zealand Rugby Union that it should nstruct its selectors to pick a comiht? new team for that match. “The New Zealand selectors have bought that a team of young players Quid not beat the- British team,” l ull-hack” concludes. “I confidently assort that they could, and by doing .o add to the general interest in the game. Even if they could not. the interest would still lie stimulated, an a defeat would he neither a disaster

nor a tragedy.”