SPEED TRIUMPHS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 670, 23 May 1929, Page 9

SPEED TRIUMPHS

VICTORIA COLLEGE BEATEN BY AUSTRALIANS CLOSE RUGBY MATCH Press Association WELLINGTON, "Wednesday. The Australian Universities Rugby team considerably surprised 6.CMW spectators at Athletic Park this afternoon by defeating the Victoria University College, last year’s champion Wellington club, by six points to three in the opening match of the tour. The game afforded an interesting comparison between the game as played in New South Wales and the Nw Zealand system of play. It was a triumph for speed. The youthful Sydney University team, which included one Melbourne man, Nair, who played wing-threequarter, showed great speed. Victoria College, which is considered to have exceptionally fast backs, appeared slow by comparison, and each time the local backs attempted passing the visitors quickly smothered the movement. There was no score in the first spell- j but Blakeney scored a try for Victoria College early in the second spell from a lineout. Ramson’s attempt at conversion was forfeited because the ball was handled twice. The Australians equalised the scores shortly afterwards by a brilliant concerted movement. From a scrum Lamport shot the ball out to Nicholas, who passed to Barker. L>. Kennedy, the other centre, came like a flash to take his pass and leave the opposition standing. A little later, McMullen kicked a penalty goal from in front of the posts about 25 yards out. Victoria College tried desperately to equalise the score, but Ramson failed with two long-dis-tance penalty kicks and the visitors scored a well-deserved victory. The visitors played the same style of Rugby as the New South Wales team, which so delighted everyone by their open play in New Zealand last season. Today the Australians, several of whom are only 17 years of age, made a feature of starting passing rushes by shooting the ball to the scrum half from the lineouts. McMullen, the visitors' fullback, is very solid on defence. His tielding and tackling were faultless today, and his accurate and powerful line kicking frequently earned applause. The team left by the ferry steamer this even is for Christchurch. A match against Canterbury University College will be played on Saturday. LAMPORT, CHAMPION VISITOR’S LUCKY TO WIN (Special to THE SUS) WELLINGTON, Today. In two things the visiting Australian Universities team reads New Zealand a lesson —in line-kicking and heeling from the set scrums. It is a curious thing that the two most debated things in the Dominion should be so superbly done by this fast, sporting side from Victoria and New South Wales. McMullan, the giant fullback of the visiting side, is a grand kick, and 50 yards Is nothing to him. He also has a habit of gathering the ball in his goal area and finding touch far down the line, a habit which almost cost his team the match against : Victoria University College, Wellington’s champion side of last season. 1 Lamport, the Australians' captain, is another fine line-finder, but all the backs kick well, even better than the ’Varsity men they met, who are all redoubtable boots. The game was one of the luckiesi wins ever seen in the country. boi the first 70 minutes of the game the Australians were not in the home team's 25 six times. Liberally servec with the ball by one of the nimblesi and cleverest of halfbacks ever seen ii inter-Varsity football, they totally fel down in the making of openings. BoU .back-lines were superlatively fast, am the local team, which included threi men of international form—Mackenzie | Mackay and Ramson, universally ad ■ mitted as the best centre that Welling ton has had since the war —was wel watched. Hopelessly beaten in th scrums the Australians will be sorel: tried when the tests begin. But thei quick-clean heeling is the most de iightful thing seen on a field for man years, and their great speed mak them formidable foes. Chief star of the side is the elusiv scrum-half Lamport, who can fias round the side of a scrum with the ba before even the onlooker is aware the it is out. Another man fast and dan gerous is J. D. Kennedy, with A. Ken nedy a dashing winger. Chiefly the team owes its win to tfc wonderful defence it showed again: incessant battering. Victoria Colies missed three clean tries from droppe passes. For over an hour they spei themselves in hammering at the Am tralian 25 without getting through, ar i the fact that the line was kept into ! was due to the sheer merit of the d< fenders who tackled like demon everyone taking his man. Anythir but a side of high quality would harelaxed that incessant alertness whi< the remorseless Wellington attack d ; manded of the visiting team,