OBSTRUCTION

Hokitika Guardian, 25 August 1930, Page 5

OBSTRUCTION

A CRITIC’S EXPLANATION. (By Telegraph—Per Press Association.! WELLINGTON, Aug. 25. An explanation was made by Mr W. Hornig, at the annual smoke concert of the Petone Rugby Club, of the “obstruction tactics’’ of the British Ru&i’jy team in its matches in New Zealand.

He said the visiting team played a standard of football that could well be imitated by clubs. “We have seen and heard a lot about tactics. 1 would like to make an explanation, 1 saw the first match the British team played in the Dominion agiinst Wanganui and I thought it was obstruction in a way that was rather foreign to us, /

After seeing the team play two other games I was a bit dubious. After the third game I was talking to a friend who lmd seen Rugby played in England Scotland, Ireland, and France and be told me the thing that struck him at Home was the amount of obstruction going on.

“Another man after the first Test, who had just returned from Home, said lie saw the obstruction referred to. I came to the conclusion then and I am certain that any obstruction by the British team was not deliberate, but was their ordinary style of the game. We considered it unfair but they did not.

“They considered our wing-forward illegal, we did not. “After all, why should we get hot under the collar about, all these arguments on tactics. It’s only a game after all.”