New Zealand's Finest Rugby Team Was In First Test With Australia

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 282, 23 July 1932, Page 2

New Zealand's Finest Rugby Team Was In First Test With Australia

A.L.G.

HONOURS IN THESE ENCOUNTERS NOW LIE ACROSS THS TASMAN

:HEN the New Zealand Rugby team tiied out tor its niatch with Australia. | in Syclney last Saturday, l the mind of its manager, I W. J. Wallaee, probably recallcd Ihe clay. 2!J years

ago, on which the first match ever played between New Zealand and Australia was held on the Sydney Cricket Ground. Previous teams from New Zealand had played New South VVales and Queensland separately, but not until the 1903 side crossed the Tasman did a team drawn from both Statcs meet a New Zealand side. To be seen at its best, a New Zealand team needs to be seen in action abroad, after it has heen travelling togetlier for some time and "living" football, and thus acquiring high-class combination For that reason it is very diilicuit to compare teams of difi'erent deeades. But there is plenty of evidence in support of the opinion held by many old-tiiners that the team of 1903 was the best that New Zealand ever had. Billy Wallaee himself was the full-baek, and he played in every one of the 10 matches of the tour. He scorcd points in every match, too, kicldng goals in the nine matches ia which he played as full-back, and scoring two tries and converting tour | in the oue game in which he played as ; centre three-quarter. In one match, j against Western Districts, Wallaee con- I verted seven tries and kicked two pcn ! alty goals. However, to the first Tcst with Australia. The New Zealand three-quarter | line that day consisted of Opae Ashcr, j very fast wing, who from his earliest I days, wlien I played with him al | school, was fond of hurdling oppon- j ents, and who was an Auckland reore j sentative when he was picked for New Zealand; Dick McGregor, of Auckland, in the centre; and Duncan McGregor, fine club five-eighth for Linwood and brilliant wing for Canterbury, and a £reat scoring man in international Rugby. The two McGregors were not related. Each of these three-quarter.1. scored a tiy in the match. Thc fiveeighths were Jimmy Duncan, of Otago — what Rugby enthusiast in New Zealand needs to be told anything ahouf Jimmy Dunean and his influence on the game, especially in the South fsland ? — and "Morry" Wood, then of Canterbury, but later oi Hawke's Bay and then of Auckland. Duncan was caotain of the eam. The half-baek for the Test was II. Kiernan. of Auckland. A. L ("Skinny") Humphries, of Taranaki, who was very Iight but very smart, standing down. What a grand lot of forwards New Zealand had in that match! Dnve Gal"aher. who latcr was to captain he first All Black team in t.:e Jnited Kingdom, was t':e wing-forwarrl. Rernie Fanning, of Canterbury. was the vice-like !o-k of the " s ->m, ■••»! R. J. Cooke was another great Canterbury forward in that paek. Tall George Nicholson, who in much. latei years was a selector, and George Tylor. a notah'c hooker, were two t.uekland fnrwT Is who went to Great Ilritn n later. a d "Paddy" Long was nnother fine Au.cUIand packman. D. I'dy and A MrMv" rcprcsented Wairarapa. At half-tiir.e New Zealand !ed l>y seven points to tliree. In tlios*.* days a goal from a mark coiint"d f'Uii poin's. and Wallaee had kicl:cd sucli a goal; which explains why the score on "ne side was seven points At the fin." h New Zealand had .scored 22 points to 3 Austrelia's points cnmc from a pen;: M y goal kicked by Stnn. Wi-kham, a fanvms centre three-quarter who played for New South Walcs in 10 different seasons spread ovor a period of 12 years, and who captained that first Austrahon side. In its 10 matches the New Zealtnd team of 1903 scored 276 points, and had

only 13 points scored against it. Only twice was its line crossed. ■3r # ■\ PAR'l from the brief visit which ^ the 1905 team made to S.ydney before it went to the United Kingdom, each of the New Zealand sides that went to Australia between 1903^ and the Great War played matches with Australia, and won all but two of them. New Zealand drew one match in 1907, and lost one in 1910. In 1905 and 1913 Australian teams came to New Zealand, but lost the international matches until there came the third Test of the 1913 tour, which was played at Christchurch, and in which Australia cnjoyed, by 16 points to 5, its one victory' over the Dominion on the Rugby field in New Zealand. In passing, one may note. for the benefit of possessors of copies of the "New Zealand Rugby AnnuaL" a strange error in that hook. The "Annual" gives the match record of what it cails an "Australian Tour of New Zealand, 1903." No team from across the Tasman visited this country in that vcar. The record which is set out ondrr UirU lipodina is that of the

, i . . 1. — New South SVales team that toured New Zealand in 1901. The first Test match in the Australian team's tour of New Zealand in 1913 was played just before the New Zealand team left for California, and the side which lost the match in Christchurch was scaivcly even a sccond fifteen; it had bcen changed in scveral positions sincc the sect)iicl Test, which. like the first, had been won by New Zealand Two points of interest in the Christchurch match were that it was referced by George Nicholson who had played »n the first game with Australia. 10 years bcfore, and that the eaptnins of thc two teams were Itoth full-backs, they being L. J Dwyer ( Australia) and J. O'Lear.v ( New Zenlnnd") After 1914. when New Zeaiaml won all tliree Tests. no matches were played with Austra'in until 1929. For some "cars League RugLy lieltl full sway in f.) ernsia nd and' not until the union game was re-estahlished in that State jlid All Black teams visit Queensland "faim But with Qnecns'nnd producing fii—t-class union nlayers once more. Aus- ' ralia was able not merely to win the Test ivbhei for the first time, but to make a clean sweep of the tliree matches, albeit two of tlvem were won by onlv oni poin' an'! two points rcspectively rhal wa*- in 1929. Thc Australian 'eam v h" h to :red the Dominion last yc.ir was beai.cn in its one Test. which vas played at Auckland, but that dld not avenge the threc defeats inflicted on New Zealand two years before, and at the moment Austra'ians have excellent reason for their claim that at present the lionours are witli Australia.

The resuits of matches played be^ tween Australia and/Ncw Zealand, to date, are : — 1JTAUSTRALIA. 1903 — N e w-^Zealand won, 22-3. 1907-^-New Zealand won, 20-0. ^ New Zealand won, 1-1-5. Drawn, 5-5. 1910— New Zealand won. 0-0. Australia won, 11-0. New Zealand won, 2S-13. 1914 — New Zealand won, 5-0. New Zealand won, 17-0. New Zealand won, 22-7. 1929 — Australia won, 9-8. Australia won, 17-9. Australia won, 15-13. IN NEW ZEALAND. 1905 New Zealand won, 14-3. 1913— New Zealand won, 30-5. New Zealand won, 25-13. Australia won, 10-5. 1931— New Zealand, won. 20-13. 1932— Australia won, 22-17. That makes 19 games, 12 of which have been won by New Zealand, and six by Australia, one liavmg been drawn. * -* * SINCE Queensland has come back into pdst-war Rugby, then, Australia has won tour of the five matches played in that period— all of the four that have been played on Australian soil. Consider that in conjunction with the fact that sinae the All Black tour of Great Britam and Ireland in the 1924-25 season there New Zealand has not won a Test rubber, except against New South Walcs alone, and it has had no rubber with that State since 1926, there having been only two matches — one drawn and one won by New Zealand— with New South Wales in 1929. The Test lionours with South Africa in 1928 were divided. On the wliole, and evcn with ailowance for the fact that in the earlier matches in the South Atrican tour of 1928 the All Black forwards did not push sufficiently in tjie scrums, the New Zealand forwards have compared wcll with their predecessorg of pre-war days, in general. But it seems to me that. as divisions, New Zealand's post-war backs have not been as good as thosc of prewar days. The diffcrence lies chiefly in the five-eighths. Since the war New Zealand has had some fine individual five-eighths, but no great pairs of them. Australia also has had a ratlier small supply of high-class five-eighths in these post-war timcs, but in each of the four Tests which it has_ won on Australian grounds in this period it has had a genius of the game at five-eighth, Tom Lawton, wliereas New Zealand has heen, in tliese matches, without its own latter-day genius as a centre-back, A. E. Cooke. It is the flash of genius in this key-position that has been the biggest factor in the diffcrence between success and failure in the post-war Tests between the two countries. But in pre-war days New Zealand depended less on the individual brilliance of one five-eighth than on the combined skill and pcnetration of its two five-eighths. Match Australia's two centre threequnrters nnd one five-eighth with New Zealand's oue centre tlirce-quarter and two five-eighths, and the Australian "ombinntions. Towers-King-Lawton and Sturtridge-King-Lawton, in the four Tests Australia has won in Australia since thc war nppear better all round than the morc-often-changed and Cookeless comhinations that New Zealand has lmd 'n the centre in these games. New Zealand shonld still have the ma+erial of whicl) fine pairs of fiveeighths could he made, 'but it is now more widely distrihuted in club games, and there is not the same concentration as of old on these positions. There are some other aspects of Australia's success, but these can he left for discussion later. There is one that shonld he noted at the moment, though; that is the effect of Australia's success on the politics of the game. As players , of Rugby. the Australian States con- . cerned are no longer to he treated as anything but the worthicst opponents of New Zealand. Tours of the Australian States by New Zealand teams , have been rather cheapened by fre- | quency. More importance should now ' be attached to less-frequent visits to . Australia. and the two fer Dominions | should scek a mutual arrangement for resistance of undue domination by the 1 so-called International Rugby Board, on whicli thev are not represented.