“WING FORWARD MUST GO”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 461, 17 September 1928, Page 6

“WING FORWARD MUST GO”

RUGBY MANAGER’S VIEW SPOILER OF OPEN PLAY? (Special to THE SUN) CHRISTCHURCH, Saturday. It is the confirmed opinion of both Mr. C. E. Morgan, manager of the touring Waratahs, and of Mr. A. J. Geddes, New Zealand selector and manager of the New Zealand team, that the wingforward must very soon disappear from New Zealand football. “It is a strange contradiction, said Mr. Morgan to a Christchurch “Sun” reporter, “but both here and in New South Wales, the fast, open game is the one which we are trying to develop. This is the style which affords most exercise of skill and football ability by the players, and most entertainment for the spectators, yet you in New Zealand are still persisting with the wingforward, who is a spoiler of all open play. I think with the experience which comes back from South Africa that the wing-forward will soon be no more.”

Mr. Geddes said he thought the wingforwaxd must go, as he was more of a hindrance than a help, as football was at present being developed. Mr. Geddes, however, championed the two-three-two scrum. There were plenty of places to which the wing-forward might go. He could be put in the back of the scrum to give more weight and an added balance, or he could be used as an extra threequarter or fullback, which was part of his duty already. Any of these positions would be more logical than the one he occupied now.