After Twenty-One Years

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 851, 20 December 1929, Page 12

After Twenty-One Years

BRITISH RUGBY TEAM DUE NEXT YEAR CREAM OF BRITISH TALENT IN PRELIMINARY SELECTION ON May 14 next the first British Rugby team to tour New Zealand since 1908 will land at Wellington, and a few days later, after the team lias found its land legs, the programme will open with a match against Wanganui. Among those who will watch them with interest will probably be A. F. Harding, captain of the Anglo-Welsh team of 1908, and now a farmer near Taihape.

THII 1930 tourists will follow in the illustrious footsteps of Stoddart, Bedell-Siev wright, and Harding, and on the preliminary selection made at at the end of the last British Rugby season is should be stronger than any of its predecessors. There is, unfortunately, considerable doubt as to the ability of some of its members to get away. The preliminary selection was announced a year before the tour in order to give the chosen players a chance to make their arrangements to get away. Many of them arc differently placed from New Zealand players. They are university men, schoolmasters, army and naval officers, and pillars of the stock exchange. It is naturally not easy fo.r men who are carving out their own careers to sacrifice practically six months of the year. On the other hand, the fact that some of them are men of considerable means should make it rather easier for them to get away. There might be a greater tendency for them to make sacrifices in order to make the trip if the British Rugby Unions would combine to assure New Zealand of what is undoubtedly her right—a

tour by a first class team in return for the intervening engagements played in England by such classic Rugby organisations as the 1919 Services’ team, and the All Blacks of 1924-25. NOT HELPFUL Unfortunately, neither the Scottish nor the Irish Rugby Union has been very helpful toward the tour, which is being sponsored by the English Union alone. Scotland at first proposed to forbid her players to accept invitations to make the tour. The withdrawal of this unwarranted ban has been followed by an even more curious decision—an instruction that the Scottish players in the team which visits New Zealand next year shall not pander to base democratic principles by wearing numbers on their jerseys. No doubt the management of the team, in deference to thb requirements of the New Zealand Union, which .like all other unions except Scotland, adopts the common-sense attitude that people who pay to see a big Rugby game

are entitled to know what they are watching, will find some way of defeating this extraordinary ukase. But if it does not, we shall be presented next year with the extraordinary spectacle of a test team in which some of the members are numbered, and others not.

Defections from the preliminary selection are already announced, but with ordinary luck up to 20 of those first named should come out next year. Since they comprise the cream of the Rugby talent of the four kingdoms, this allows a remarkably powerful side to be placed in the field for test matches. WAKEFIELD AS CAPTAIN

W. W. Wakefield is not positive yet that he will come, but if he does he will most certainly captain the side. He has had long experience; as skipper of one of the most consistent English teams on record. In addition he

has captained Cambridge, the Harlequins, the Air Force, and Aliddlesex, the county that won the championship last year. Wakefield is married, with two children. He learned his Rugby at Sedbergh School and is now getting on in years as footballers go. There were indications last season, when he played in few internationals and passed the captaincy of England on to Cove-Smith, that he was about to terminate his playing career, but forwards of his physical stamp have a lot of life in them, and if he comes to New Zealand he can be relied to show the exceptional dasli for which he is renowned. ITe and Alaurice Brownlie, the New Zealand captain, are almost precisely the same age, Brownlie being a few days the younger. Should Wakefield not make the trip, the next choice for the captaincy would be George Stephenson, another very famous postwar footballer, and a member of the selection committee which chose the team. Stephenson is a three-quarter of rare speed and elusiveness, with a great scoring record. Another three-quarter with a great record is the dapper-looking lan Smith, a true “flying Scotsman,” whose sprinting powers won Scotland the Calcutta Cup last season. With Wallace, McPherson and G. G. Aitken, Smith made up one of the finest threequarter lines Oxford University has ever had.

Other three-quarters nominated are C. D. Aarvold, a South African studying at Cambridge, and the captain of the light blues last season. Aarvold played some fine games for England, and scored a brilliant try in the final match against France last season, but he had a dull period at one stage of the winter and was replaced by A. L. Novis, deemed by many good judges the most improved player in England last year. Novis is another of those picked for the New Zealand trip.

The fullbacks selected include a South African, K. A. Sellar, whose post as a naval officer on one of the ships on the South Atlantic station has ke.pt him ,away from the game in the last couple of seasons. Sellar played for the Wanderers Club in Capetown while the

All Blacks were over there in 19-3. The other string for the fullback position in the tests is T. AV. Brown, whom many claim to be superior to tSellar. The best halfback combination may be Nelson and Greenlees, the Scottish pair, who play with line understanding, and vary their thrusts artfully. Powell and Williams, a Welsh pair, and Sugden, who played against, the 1924-25 All Blacks, are other good halves on the list. RAW-BONED FORWARDS Among the forwards there are several raw-boned heavyweights who will at. least demonstrate to New Zealand that the art of pushing in the scrum is not altogether lost. They include G. R. Beamish (Ireland), the captain of the Royal Air Force ; Martindale, Mackintosh, Cagney, “-Dai” Parker,‘Gummer and Paterson, though at the time of writing Paterson and Cagney must be listed among the very doubtful starters. Even if there are as many as a dozen defections, the current season in the Br.tish Isles should produce sufficient new talent to fill up the gaps and supply a leaven of useful and resilient young blood among the experienced veterans who, for the most part, make up the preliminary selection.^ It is a queer tradition in New Zealand Rugby tours that the opening mach shall be at ‘Wanganui. The Spr.ngboks started there in a hectic encounter in 1921, when J. S. de Kock broke his leg within a few minutes of starting,, and “Moke” Beilis, who was placing wing-forward, was not long in coming to grips with some of the re-line-1 obstructionists among the African pack. That day, too, saw Van Heerdcn demonstrate his sprinting powers by crossing the line like a cannon-shot after a burst of almost mechanical chain-passing. Even so, it was a close call for the Springboks, and may be Wanganui, rising from the depression that has surrounded Rugby there in the past few years, will give the British team, too, a sharp foretaste of dour struggles to come. J.G.M.