ALL BLACKS TELL THEIR STORY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 489, 19 October 1928, Page 6

ALL BLACKS TELL THEIR STORY

A NOTEWORTHY feature of the return of the All Blacks from South Africa has been the emphatic repudiation of a sensational story of dissension in the team, circulated by another Auckland newspaper. It needed only the outspoken comment of members of the touring party on their return to completely falsify a series of wild rumours and a quite unjustified attack on the captain of the New Zealand team. Maurice Brownlie himself goes back to his farm in Hawke’s Bay not only completely exonerated from these charges, but with a higher reputation than ever as a player and as a man. Not a little of the hard-won later success of the team was due to his indomitable fighting spirit and the grit and courage he displayed as leader of the party when things were going badly for New Zealand. Apart from the much-discussed question of his playing ability in Africa, which has been frankly dealt with by several of his comrades, Mark Nicholls is credited with a match-winning performance in the historic fourth test, and has himself paid a generous tribute to his captain. As already suggested in The Sun, the various members of the team who have been interviewed since their return, have put forward no proposals for any drastic alterations in our New Zealand system of play. Apart from the xise of the “loose head” as a temporary expedient for getting over a. clause in an agreement which was signed at an early stage in the tour, the 2-3-2 scrum fully justified itself in the later stages of the tour when the All Black forwards had realised the necessity for each man putting every ounce of weight into the pack. The tourists do, however, strongly emphasise the thoroughness of the South African Rugby organisation. They mention how closely the All Blacks’ play was studied, and the intensive preparation of the South African teams. They might have added (but for the fact that they did not consider it their place to do so) that this is where New Zealand football has slipped in late years. Whether the game is played under old rules or the amended version of the game, the team that is px-operly coached and trained has a big advantage over a side that is organised under happy-go-lucky methods, and a careless confidence in the prowess of the past. It is here that New Zealand must make adequate preparation for the return visit of the Springboks, even if it is so far away as season 1934.