The First Test

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1003, 20 June 1930, Page 9

The First Test

ALL EYES ON CARISBROOK Fast Backs Against Fast Forwards (By THE SUN'S Special Reprc sentatii e. ./. MCLEAN.

IX a private sitting-room in tli very important consultati' Whatever strategy the Britis. Test match at Carisbrook toi originated in that room. Foi doubt conscious from the less that in the New Zealand forwt proposition, is leaving nothing the first British team to defei tive side on its own ground. If there had been signs during the early stages of the tour that the British team was not taking its programme with quite the impassioned seriousness of a New Zealand side engaged in a similar campaign, they vanished with the approach of the test. Naturally, there was a good deal of competition for places in the team. The natural ambition of every member of the touring party is to gain a place in at least one test side. Some will for certain have places in all four, but as a general principle the uniform quality of the party is such that almost every man might be given at least one test game, and still the test sides would be of fairly even calibre. Last Saturday's side against Otago was picked as a possible test team, there could be no doubt of that, and its performance left among other aspirants to place no illusions about the fact that few changes would be required. Of the men with best reason to be pleased, one was “Henry” Rew. who before the Otago match had played in only two games. Another was J. McD. Hodgson—“Mac” Hodgson to his friends —who was the only noninternational in the tentative test side. FORWARD OF PROMISE Rew was the front-row forward whose injury just before the EnglandAVales match last season allowed J. M Tucker to fly to the match, and cover himself with glory. On tho New Zealand tour- Rew played a fine bustling gam© at Wanganui, then stood down for several matches with an injured knee. He reappeared at Greymouth. where he was pulled down within inches of the line in a frantic effort to score his first try of the tour Again at Dunedin last Saturday he made a run almost to the line, where he was buried under such a mass of firends and foes that it was quite impossible for the referee to tell whether he had scored or not. So Rew has yet to break his duck, and would no doubt be a very happy man if he could do co tomorrow.

Hodgson has done exceptionally well to find a place in the Test side, as he has not yet been “capped” for England, though on his New Zealand form the honour is not likely to be long deferred. Very young, very tall and very clever as a forward, he perhaps just lacks the ruggedness to make him a champion. AVhen photographs of the team were sent out from London after its selection, some one made a mistake in Hodgson’s case, and sent out a picture of the wrong man. As it happened, the mistake was not very flattering, and Hodgson is still trying to live it down. So l'ar no one lias managed to obtain a complete set of authentic weights from the British team, so comparisons of weights between the different packs are not necessarily as enlightening as they seem. Some of the weights given were those taken on the boat, when those concerned were well above their playing weight. Others were just haphazard estimates. In British Rugby those things do not matter much. But when, as lias happened, and may happen again, a British pack of eight is pushed about by a New Zealand seven considerably lighter, on paper at least, than itself, the absence of authentic weights does not do the team justice. A CLEAR COMPARISON A case which illustrates the obvious inaccuracy of the given weights, which emanated from the programme at AVanganui, and have been passed on as a kind of gospel from programme to programme since, is the relative weights of Reeve and Lindsay, who marked each other in the first spell iri the Otago match last Saturday. Reeve was set down as weighing 13.10, while Lindsay, obviously a much heavier* and more strongly-built man, was clown as 13.7. Reeve’s true weight is probably a shade more than 13st. On the other hand, there may be pitfalls for careless observers. A Christchurch writer asserted after the Canterbury match that Poole did not weigh anything near his given weight of 12st. He said lOst. would be nearer the mark. On reading the report, Poole went to the nearest weighing

DUNEDIN, Today, e Grand Hotel. Dunedin, some ons have been held this tveek. h Rugby team unfolds in the nor row, a lot of it ay ill have * the British team, though no ions of its first eight matches irds it faces a terribly difficult £ to chance in its effort to be it a New Zealand representamacliine, the needle registering 12st. to an ounce. Since arriving in New Zealand some of the team have put on weight, perhaps rather more than they would wish for. On the rich diet of hotels, it is difficult to avoid doing so. Farrell has added half a dozen pounds to his weight, and in street clothes Beamish goes about IG^st. With whatever extra weight it has acquired, the British team will still have most to fear from the New Zealand pack, which will have the advantage of it in both weight and reach. The tallest man in the British pack is Hodgson. With Prentice, the averare height would be raised. Without him, Beamish and Ivor Jones are probably next in height to Hodgson. Neither Black nor Farrell is big according to All Black standards, while the front row of the British scrum is distinguished more by sturdiness than anything else. BACKS UNDER FIRE In the circumstances, the British backs may face the gruelling test of forward rushes initiated by tall men bursting away from line-outs and loose play, and in this respect their speed

and cleverness may avail them little. Some of them, such as Spong, will go down again and again. But if there is any hesitation, against forwards of All Black calibre, it will be fatal. In other phases of their work the British backs will have nothing to fear from the New Zealand backs, even allowing for the touch of genius provided by Cooke, as their tackling is sound, and their pace helps them to cover up mistakes. A point worth noting is that in all the eight matches so far played on the tour, not one try has been scored against the tourists from a concerted piece of back play. The British team lias already shown sufficient enterprise and freedom in its methods of attack to justify the conclusion that the belief that New Zealand has nothing to learn in the arts of attacking back play is entirely fallacious. The only sides that have consistently played the same type of Rugby in New Zealand since the war were Hawke’s Bay and Auckland, when those provincial teams were In their heyday. The 1924 All Blacks, of course, played that type of Rugby at Horn© and from the play of the present side it looks as though British footballers took the fullest heed of the lessons thus implanted. Whatever happens tomorrow, there will be room left for respect for the tactics of the visitors and. if it is true, as some of them say, that at least half a dozen places in the present side could be filled by definitely better men who were compelled to remain at home, then even the defeat of a great ambition should not lead us t.o underestimate the strength of British Rugoy,