"New Zealand Will Win The Rubber”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 428, 9 August 1928, Page 13

"New Zealand Will Win The Rubber”

ALL BLACK SLATER’S SLASHING TRY “Although questioning the value of his two chance hicks, however good as eight points , tribute must be paid to the drop-kicking of Bennie Osier," writes THE SUN correspondent with the All Blacks in Africa , in commenting upon the defeat of the New Zealanders in the first test. DURBAN, July 2, 1925. The preliminaries are over and the silver fern reposes beneath the feet of the Springbok. Round one to the South Africans. “Then there is Slater’s try, “slashing” and of the sort which you somehow don’t mind having scored against J °When this reaches New Zealand the second Test will be disposed of, and in spite of the predictions of the scribes and those in authority, I think New Zealand has still her chance of winning the rubber.

No doubt the cable artists will have tempered their judgments with mercy, but most of the players feel that, however bad things may be, they don’t want excuses, but the cold facts. If results are going to show surprised New Zealanders that Rugby is played better in South Africa than in their own country, we shall of necessity take heed and be grateful for the demonstration. Results, however they may come, will not show that Rugby is played better in either of the countries, but that it is played differently, and a New Zealander who sees the Tests here this year will not want the South African style of Rugby introduced into his own land.

He will admire the South Africans for their complete victory in tactics in the first Test, for so it was, and very little more. When two teams of the admitted calibre of the Springboks and the All Blacks face each other on the field, one can expect the science of Rugby tactics to be exploited fully. When two bodies of physically fit men spend a week before an encoLinter in getting ready, it stands to reason that there will be a battle of wits as well as of muscles and sinews. My main idea in dealing with these encounters from a critical point of view wil be to show where the New Zealand game differs so entirely from the South African one that they are really no longer capable of being called the same game. MENTAL FITNESS

No effort was spared by the Management Committee to get the team as fit as possible. The eighteen players selected considered themselves more or less as in “extra special” training from the beginning of the week, and almost everything that was done by them was done with a view to participating in the Test on Saturday. From the walk together on the Durban beach in the early morning, with a few limb loosening “jerks,” the run and practice in the later part of the day, the team-talks, to the massaging at night, each day was a preparation day. The Springboks, although they were fairly consistent in their work, did not “mobilise” so carefully as we did, and yet they were just as fit on the day. Here we come to a thorny question in Rugby football, when is a man fit? How can a team be best prepared for a hard game? Ptugby differs from many games in that the stimulus for violent effort and exertion must generally come from within, especially in attacking movements. I say generally, because sometimes one will get a tap on the nose or some other part and will respond by “hoeing in.” The whole question is too large to be dealt with here, but I should like to repeat what 1 have said before, that football fitness, at any rate, is, after the simple preliminary and physical training has been obtained, more a question of mental freshness than anything else. One would think that surely in an international match everyone playing would be keyed up to such an extent that they would play at the very best of their form. Yet after weeks of thinking about the big game there can easily be an anti-climax when the play begins. The keying-up has been too prolonged and has been going on at the wrong time. Enough of that for the present, but in a game like Saturday’s, when everything seemed to go wrong, one is tempted to look in all directions for the causes. Kingsmead, a typically English name, is the name of the ground where the first Test match between New Zealand and South Africa, on African soil, was played. The turf is very good and fast. The crowd had come from all over the Union and further, was estimated at 15,000. One ex-Christchurch High School boy, who played in the South Island secondary schools’ tournament in 1919, K. O. T. Sands, came from Nairobi to see the game, the whole journey taking him over a month. Then of course the influx of visitors for the Durban July Handicap, the Derby of South Africa, swelled the crowd considerably. Strangely enough the South African football public was not at all disappointed, and the game seems to have been an excellent one from their point of view, yet New Zealanders watching it were disgusted. Nothing would go right with the All Blacks. It was like one of those horrid dreams when you keep on missing trains. There was one movement at the very begining of the game which nearly put us five points a Tread, and some of us feel that had that happened the rest of the game would have been different Yet Bennie Osier had his kicking boots on that day, and it seemed as (hough he must kick goals. FUTURE TACTICS

The New Zealand attack was crippled right from the outset, when Robilliard. Carleton and Gransicie all went “out” with damaged legs. They all stayed on the field, however, and kept the opposing backs out for nearly the whole of the game. Duffy, of South Africa, who collided with Carletcn, had to stay off after half-time. The rule of non-replacements is a most primitive arrangement, and actually tends to encourage rough play. A weary procession of scrums, with an occasional flash of a passing movement, just about describes the first Test. The Springbok forwards ;n their role of adequate scruramagers had a day out, and if we want to win matches we shall have to put our noses to the grindstone and beat them, or hold them there first. With the referees stopping the game for the slightest breacli of the rules, with the South Africans having scrums instead of line-outs whenever it is their Dali, and with the prolonged agony of having three scrums generally instead of one, because of the stupid and idiotic methods of putting the ball in, and consequent breaches of rules in hooking, we have double the number of scrums over here or more than we have in New Zealand. Trply there is need for thought on the matter. We can blame the fast passing game for our weakness in scrum work, and remember it is almost impossible to have both. Almost, but not quite. On the almost depends the result of the rubber. I expect the next Test match to be different, for the New Zealanders will strain every nerve to win. and also will try to foist their own game on to the South Africans, instead of vice versa, as in the first T*»st. 6