RUGBY STALWARTS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 42, 18 January 1938, Page 8

RUGBY STALWARTS.

THE 1905 ALL BLACKS. WELLINGTON, Jan. 18. It is not surprising that English veterans consider that the 1905 All Blacks were the greatest Rugby team to ever take the field. The original New Zealand team startlad the Rugby world by defeating the English champion team, Devon, by 65 points to 4 in the opening match of the tour. Mr V. A. Beanland, ail eminent English critic, still considers the 1905 New Zealand team the best which has ever taken the field. “As one who first watched and played Rugby football in the days of nine forwards and three three-quarter backs, who can recall umpires running about the field with the referee, who once saw a bearded player in long trousers in the scrummage of a firstclass club match, and who still watches olub, county, and international Rugby with the same enthusiasm as in the far-off eighties. I think the high-water mark was reached 32 years ago with the visit to this country of the All Blacks,” he writes. “Those wonderful men from New Zealand, who made the study of tactics and of physical fitness a religion, and whom I saw .in action a great many times, including three of their four international matches and the epic defeat by perhaps the greatest Welsh team of all time at Cardiff Arms Park, played Rugby football as I conceived it ought to be played. “They limited lacking to.bare necessities, and their running, handling and general team-work were dazzling and bewildering. We see nothing quite approaching the l>eauty of this combination even in these days of ultra-specialisation and intensive coaching in the schools. “But, of course, the majority of those first New' Zealanders were superRugby players, and some of them—l would speciallv mention Wallace, Hunter and Charles Seeling—would find places if a 15 could be picked from the world’s greatest players down the ages.”