ARE THEY COMMONPLACE ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 382, 16 June 1928, Page 5

ARE THEY COMMONPLACE ?

Too Bad to Be True CALIBRE OF ALL BLACKS (By J.G.M.) IF it is true that the All Blacks last Saturday played as a commonplace side, then their form was obviously too bad to be true. New Zealanders have not been living in such a fool’s paradise that they are unable to recognise good footballers when they see them. There may be, and doubtless are, weaknesses in the composition of the 1928 All Black team; but classification of the whole bunch as commonplace is a judgment we know to be unsound.

yjR F. M. HOWARD, the critic who dubbed the All Blacks common - )lace, is a competent and able Rugby vriter, who has been specially enraged by the “Cape Times” on account »f his former experience in following he 1924 All Blacks round England as he representative of the London ‘Times.” Doubtless he involuntarily made con>arisons with the team he saw. al lohannesburg and that other All Black earn that he saw making history five rears ago on the playing fields of Engand. This 1928 team may lack the fabuous skill and strength of Nepia, the dectric elusiveness of Mill, and the renius of A. E. Cooke, and on that iccount Mr. Howard was entitled tc •ate it, even so early in the tour, ol ess magnitude than the 1924 team But New Zealand has yet to be convinced that its defects are so prolounced that it can be termed comnonplace, and the very fact that il night have given a commonplace dis>lay at Johannesburg suggests thal individually and collectively it had noi hen reached true form. At the time of the Johannesburg natch, it must be remembered, th« team had barely been in South Africa i fortnight. But it was already play ng its fourth match, after travelling >ver 2,500 miles by train from Durbai :o Capetown and back to Johannes nurg, and it had already experiencec he varying altitudes and atmospheric .•onditions of South Africa. The heavy train travelling, it musl )© remembered, was not part of tht >riginal scheme of travelling, whicl: vould have allowed the team to travel ill the way to Capetown by the Euripides, and have five days at Capeown, instead of only two, before the irst match. MASSED ATTACK After making allowances for these ;onsideration, it is still plain that the All Blacks have met unexpectedly strong opposition. Even bearing ii: nind the formidable massed attacks ol he 1921 Springboks, we had not imigined that an African provincial side iuch as the Transvaal, could beat us at forward play, our very own game Apart from the unfamiliar formation encountered in the scrums, the All Blacks have met new methods of forward play, the characteristic bundled attacks of South Africa, with men on the fringe of the loose scrum doing a great deal of what we regard, as illegal shepherding and off-side play. These bunched attacks of the 1923 Springboks greatly exercised New Zealand referees in 1921. They Wtere accompanied by ruthless methods and short hand-to-hand passing which facilitated the development of very dangerous attacks from the line-out. Were they familiar with these methods, the All Blacks could doubtless have countered them at once. But few of the present pack had more than passing experience against the 1921 Springboks, and under the circumstances it is only experience on the tour that will teach them to combat South African tactics without resort to the somewhat drastic methods .ulopted by Finlayson last Saturday. There has been a suspicion that some of the pack have been “shining,” and the sooner this tendency is eliminated the better. Now that they realise the quality of the opposition the All Black forwards will no doubt recognise that the remaining games will call for honest effort during every minute on the field. It is ajopa.rently' too much to hope that the hookers will get a monopoly of the ball in the scrums, but Wednesday’s improved stum showed that a well-consoli-ated two-three-two scrum is not to e despised. Hore may have helped wain to get a larger share of possssion, in which case he will prejmably be chos'en more frequently lan in the past. WAS IT COINCIDENCE? Behind the scrum it is already aparent that match winning quality

is present, but there may not be enough of it close to the scrum. When the news of the Transvaal disaster came through, those with good memories recalled that the inside backs were the Kilby-Johnston-Nicholls trio, who did not impress Aucklanders when they were harassed by the Auckland pack in the Auck-land-Wellington match last season. Unfortunately the cable messages have been consistently obscure as far

(Springbok Scrummers)

as criticism or commendation of individual players has been concerned, and until the mail arrives from South Africa there will be no definite indication Of how individual form is shaping. Reading between the lines, however, one would hazard that Nicholls has, to be charitable, not yet struck his best form, and that Strang may prove to be his successor as the team’s crack inside back. That there is nothing wrong with the threequarter line, particularly when Lindsay occupies the centre, is indicated as much by Mr. F. M. Howard’s observations as by its performances whenever it is given a gallop with the ball. j After to-day there are only two more matches before the first test, which will be played at Durban in a fortnight. The two intervening matches are against Western Transvaal, at Potchefstroom, and against Natal at Pietermaritzburg. The Natal match is next Saturday, and after that there will be a week’s rest before ' the test. As far as South African form can j be judged on reports that have been

iNepia Mill (1924 Stars) cabled, it seems certain that Prinsloo, Rousseau, Osier, Devine and Van Nickerke, with possibly Tindall, or Du Plessis as fullback, will find places among the backs, while Louw, Melck, Van Druten, Kruger, Olliver and Mostert are likely candidates for places in the pack. Interesting features disclosed by the records to date are that, excluding today’s match, Robilliard, Grenside, Ward, Stewart, Swain and Finlayson have played in four matches out of five. Of the Auckland contingent,* McWilliams has played in three games, Hadley and Lucas in two each, and Sheen in one. Rushbrook, Snow, Harvey and Hore are others who, up to to-day, had played in one match. The scoring register shows 53 points for, and 26 against. Leading scorer for the All Blacks is Lindsay, with ten points, made up of five conversions. Strang and Nicholls have eight each, Strang and Rushbrook being the only players who have so far scored two tries. Details of the scores: Lindsay, 5 conversions . . . . 10 Nicholls, 1 try, 1 pen, 1 conv 8 Strang, 2 tries, 1 con 8 Rushbrook, 2 tries 6 One try each to Finlayson, Swain, McWilliams, Dailey, Lucas, Grenside, and Robilliard. Reviewing the performances to date, and making allowances for conditions and the unpardonable folly committed when scrum experiments were pursued in a match so important as the game with Transvaal, one sees no reason to modify the opinion, expressed here before, that the team will win the majority of the tests, and that it will go through the remainder of its programme with only the stray set-backs occasioned through being caught “on the hop.” ° S'