South Africa’s Record In Rugby Football

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 375, 8 June 1928, Page 7

South Africa’s Record In Rugby Football

GAMES WITH OVERSEAS TEAMS

New Zealand Has Assisted Progress

TOURS by British teams have had the greatest influence on the improvement of Rugby football in South Africa, but New Zealand Rugby has also played a part. The progress of the game in South Africa may be charted by tracing her players’ records in Test matches and in other games with overseas teams. Even cold statistics take on some colour when they tell the tale of South African Rugby.

As in New Zealand, Rugby in South Africa started from occasional games of military and naval teams. It was played at Capetown, the military headquarters of the country, and at Simonstown, the adjacent naval base, in the seventies. Later it was spread by colonists who had played the handling game in England, and the arrival of schoolmasters who were accustomed to Rugby gave it a firmer foundation. Capetown was naturally the South African headquarters of the game, and there the Western Province Rugby Football Union was formed in 1883. Before long Kimberley and Johannesberg also had Rugby unions. Now the whole of the Union of South Africa is covered by a network of Rugby Unions, with the South African Rugby Board at the head of affairs. BOER WAR RUGBY During the Boer War several New Zealand military teams helped to keep the game going behind the lines. The late “Dave” Gallagher, captain of the All Blacks a few years later, was prominent in these matches. After the Boer War a number of New Zealanders, with a few Australians, resident in Natal, formed the New Zealanders’ Club. Rugby had languished in Natal, which was a stronghold of Association football, but the New Zealanders’ Club infused new life into it, and raised the standard of play considerably, and eventually Natal became an important factor in the Currie Clip competition. A South African writer has placed it on record that the thing which above everything else brought Rugby into the limelight in Natal was the visit of the New Zealand Military Service team in 1919. That fine New Zealand team played 15 matches in South Africa, winning 11, drawing one, and losing three, and scoring 170 points (average 11.33) to 69 (average 4-60). Its defeats were by Griqualand, Universities and Western Province, but it avenged itself on Western Province. The drawn game was with Town Clubs. No match was played against a representative South African team. THE SPRINGBOK VISIT New Zealand influence was exercised also through a South African team’s visit to this Dominion in 1921. That side played 19 matches, winning 15, losing two, and drawing two. It scored 244 points (average 12.84) to 81 (average 4.26). Canterbury people remember that tour with great joy, for Canterbury alone among the provincial unions beat the visitors, scoring six points to the Springboks’ four. The other game in which the South Africans were beaten was the first Test, played at Dunedin, New Zealand winning by 13 points to five. South Africa won the second Test, at Auckland, by nine points to five, and the third, played

in Wellington in heavy rain, was drawn, neither side scoring. Many New Zealanders have criticised the teams chosen to represent the Dominion in those games, and the way they were trained, but that does not matter now. What is of moment to this survey is the fact that, by reason of the division of honours in the three Tests in New Zealand, added to the successes gained in the British Isles and against British teams in South Africa, the South Africans were entitled to hold that any nation which wanted to claim the world’s Rugby championship had to beat South Africa first. TEST MATCH SUMMARIES The following summaries of Test matches played by South Africa and New Zealand respectively'-, in the British Isles and against British touring teams in the Dominions, show clearly how South African Rugby has progressed. and afford some measure of comparison. INTERNATIONAL MATCHES IN BRITISH ISLES

Analysing these records a little further, we find that the averages of points for test matches are as follow:

South Africa and New Zealand, in New Zealand in 1921, New Zealand averaged six points and South Africa 4.66. It is a fair assumption, from these records, that whichever country has the better record in the approaching tests in South Africa will be entitled to wear the parsley crown of Rugby.

South Africa, Matches. Points. Year. P. W. P. L.' for agst. 1906 4 2 1 1 29 21 1912-13 4 4 — — 66 3 Totals . . S611 95 24 New Zealand, Matches. Points. Year. P. W. D. L.' for agst. 1905 .. . . 4 3 — 1 42 10 1924-25 3 3 — — 42 11 Totals . . 7 6 — 1 84 21 T«EST MATCHES IN DOMINIONS South Africa v. British Tourin g- Teams Matches. Points. Year. P. W. D. L.' for agst. 1S91 . . . . — 10 1896 . . . . 4 1 — 3 16 34 1903 . . . . 3 12 — 10 IS 1910 . . . . 3 2 — l 38 23 1924 .. . . 4 3 1 — 43 15 Totals . . 37 7 3 7 107 100 New Zealand v. British Touring- Teams Matches. Points. * — % ki-ji p-oeci# P. W. D. I,. for agst. 1904 . . . . 9 3 1908 .. .. 3 2 1 — 64 8 Totals 4 3 1 — 73 11

IN BRITISH ISLES For. Agst. South Africa 11.87 3 New Zealand 12.00 3 Against British Touring Teams. South Africa 6.20 5.SS New Zealand 18.25 3.75 In the three test matches played by