THE ALL BLACK SCRUM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 378, 12 June 1928, Page 8

THE ALL BLACK SCRUM

Sir,— Apropos of your sub-leader and the effectiveness of the New Zealand All Black Rugby formation, might I say that even before 1904, the 2-3-2 system had been in vogue for many years. One would think to read some of the critics in other papers that the 3-2-3 African scrum was something entirely new. But we played it in

New Zealand in the ’7o’s and ’Bo’s, and found that it did not give anything like the results of the wedge-shaped scrum with men packing 2-3-2. I think it was the old Alhambra Club in Dunedin which first evolved this formation, some time in the 80’s, and so successful were they with it that it was soon in general vogue all over New Zealand. It is not conceivable that a system which was a feature of New Zealand’s victories against the best teams of Australia and Britain for so many years should now suddenly be hopelessly lacking against the South Africans To my way of thinking, we have not got hookers these days in the class of George Tyler, Steve Casey, Harry Frost. Dave Gallaher, Ned Hughes and others, who made a science of this branch of the game. Nowadays our hookers (in fact, all our forwards) are too fond of getting out in the open, instead of putting in their weight in the tight. I feel sure that this is where the Springbok teams are beating the All Blacks. OLD REP.