Now for the Tests

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 998, 14 June 1930, Page 13

Now for the Tests

BRITISH TEAM’S PROSPECTS Preliminary Lessons (SUN Special Representative — Copyright) AT the time of writing, the British Rugby team has played six matches. It has won four convincingly, lost another that it should really have won, and been beaten fore and aft by Canterbury in the last.

Set a difficult task by those who arranged the itinerary, the tourists have come through the ordeal of their first six matches, none of them easy according to past standards, only a shade worse than the 1921 Springboks, who in the same series of matches lost one and drew one, while in another, the Wellington match, they pulled the game out of the fire at the last minute.

Britain had sufficient attacking opportunities to do the same. But

against Canterbury, on the run of the play, the visitors deserved to be beaten by considerably more than the six

points which, with two penalty goals to Canterbury, made up the final margin In the early stages of a tour ii*ce this the difficulty is to assess the worth of the visitors’ performances against representative sides whose calibre cannot be positively determined. On recent performances Taranaki, Manawhenua and Wairarapa are all good sides. Yet they were beaten easily by the British team. The Wairarapa pack was a good one, right up to the standard of provincial forwaid play. The .backs were inferior in attack, yet even the boasted Wellington backs did nothing in that respect. Canterbury has been the only team so far which had the courage to swing its backs into action right through the match, and curiously enough • the stumbling block for most of the Canterbury attacks was Carleton’s failure to hold his passes. THE DELAYED TACKLE

In their first four matches the touring team exhibited a high standard of Rugby, but in the next two it showed inability to drive its attacks right home. Jn both the Wellington and Canterbury matches the insides made some glorious openings, but the back-ing-up of fast wing-threequarters or winging forwards did not produce the same results as it had done in earlier matches.

In tho Wellington match, at least, one reason for this was the “delayed tackling” which was part of the defin - ite and planned policy of the Wellington backs. Whether a British back had tho ball or not in the passing rushes, he was put down by his opposite. That is, men who transferred the ball so as to have a further part in the movement by backing up, were put down, willy nilly. This sort of thing, admittedly, is part and parcel of the game in New Zealand. But it is just a question how far it can legitimately be carried. There is some excuse for a delayed tackle when a man’s momentum carries him into the man who has just passed the ball, but it is totally unwarranted when as a deliberate policy the man who has passed out is grounded every time.

The offence is difficult to detect, because the referee usually follows the flight of the ball, and does not see what has happened after the ball has passed on. For the same reson the great majority of spectators are quite unaware of what happens. But there was a classic example of the delayed tackle in the Canterbury match, when Carleton, who is a trifle too fond of such practices, effectively prevented Aarvold from taking further part in a fine passing rush from which a score might otherwise have been obtained. BEARING ON THE TESTS

Of matches with a bearing on the tests, far the most important to date has been the Canterbury match, because it showed the British team opposed by a typical, well-balanced New Zealand side, in which good forwards, among whom Stewart represented a characteristic New Zealand type, were supported by sound backs. Giving Stewart the support of two or three other forwards of the same physical power and ability, it was quite easy to see that the best possible British pack will have very little chance of beating an All Black pack. Every match so far has provided an ironic reply to the dismal prophets who a few months ago were moaning about the declining standard of New Zealand forward play. The fact that these prophets included such eminents as Porter and Mark Nicholls does not prove their opinions to have been worth the time they took to express. The fact is that, amended rules or no, it is the forwards who so far have had the greatest part in checking the tourists. There have been more “shiners” in the British packs than in the New Zealand packs, and in hooking New Zealand has generally had some advantage wherever the scrums have not been divided on about a fifty-fifty basis.

In the circumstances it is difficult to see what arguments a Christchurch schoolmaster who approached B. H. Black, one of the British forwards, to get him to give a lecture to the schoolboys on the virtues of the 3-2-3 scrum, expected him to advance when on the previous Saturday the boys had seen seven men in the New Zealand formation get the better of a 3-2-3 scrum for two-thirds of the game.

To revert to the test teams, if a back line raised above mediocrity by the inclusion of Cooke were placed behind a pack of Stewarts and Finlaysons, the defence and opportunism alone would supply most of what the forwards required in the way of support. Given such a backline, the forwards would have more than ail outside chance of winning the tests on tlieir own. SCARCITY OF BACKS Matches to date have shown thai the trouble with New Zealand Rugby is not the scarcity of good forwards, but thfe extreme paucity of backs. Mark Nicholls and Johnston weren’t of All Black class in the Wellington game. Dailey, the best half yet seen hardly scintillated as an All Black hal’r might be expected to. ‘Wing-tliree-quarters up to the British standard seem almost non-existent.. Oliver (Wellington) and Hart have been about the best. Even in the British team the selection of the best back team will not be easy. Sobeys injury has been a severe blow. The first match of the tour had hardly been going half an hour before So bey went down with the full -weight of a Wanganui forward across his knee. The ligaments were wrenched badly, and playing on when he should really have been off

the iield did not ihi prove matters. At first it was hoped that recovery would be a matter of days. Now it

is questionable whether Sobey will be any use at all on the tour. Progress is slow, and the first time he attempts

to play the movement of the knee nr renew the trouble.

As Sobey lias been the best individual back in English Rugby for the past two seasons, the effect of this setback

on the team’s prospects may be realised. It has been accomplished by another disastrous piece of bad luck the injury to Bassett’s ankle, which has continued to give trouble, though at present it is hoped that with electrical treatment received in Christchurch he will be fit for both the Otago match and the first test.

Jennings had proved the best sec-ond-string to Bassett, but he, too. was out of action for the Canterbury match. Prentice, Rew, Ivor Jones, Bonner and Kendrew have been other minor casualties.

With' Sobey out, Poole or Murray will be the halfback for the. first test. Possibly because he is a shade the more reliable, Poole may be the man. For stand-off half there are two strong candidates, Bowcott and Spong. Though Bowcott is better at stand-off half than at centre, this particular difficulty may be solved by playing him in tho threequarter line with Aarvold. Of the wings, Morley picks himself. Reeve or No vis will be the other. Novis is the more finished player, but lacks Reeve’s speed.

Dai Parker seems certain of a game , in the front row of the scrum. The others are all a very even, hard-work-ing lot. Kendrew and O’Neill may take the outside positions. Black and Hodgson seem certain to be the second row. Black is one of the fittest men in the team, and Hodgson the most improving forward. With Prentice, Wilkinson. Beamish Ivor Jones and Walsh all showing form, the back row is as difficult to select as the front. Beamish seems certain of a place. Welsh, too. de serves consideration. Ivor Jones, and Wilkinson are winging forwards o* contrasting type. Wilkinson has an uncanny gift of anticipating attacking movements, as he showed in the Taranaki and Canterbury matches. He has not yet been penalised for off-side, but on the other hand, does not feed hi** backs as cleverly as Ivor Jones. Wilkinson. however, is certain to figure in a test match before the tour is over. Here. then, is a possible British team for the first test: Fullback. —J. Bassett. Threequarters.—J. S. R. Reeve, C. D. Aarvold, H. M. Bowcott, J. Morley. Halves. —R. S. Spong. T. P. Murray. Front Row. —H. O’H. O’Neill, D. Parker, D. A. Kendrew. Locks. —B. H. Black, J. McD. Hodgson. Back Row.—lvor Jones, G. Beamish. H. Welsh.