SPRINGBOK & BRITON: WORTHY RUGBY FOES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1051, 15 August 1930, Page 7

SPRINGBOK & BRITON: WORTHY RUGBY FOES

British Tour Reviewed —Their Record Compared With That of Springboks—Outstanding Players , on Both for New Zealand —

A LTHOUGIT totally dissimilar ii: playing methods, the Springboks of 1921 and the British Rugby team of 1930 have this much in common—they presented a formidable challenge to New Zealand’s Rugby supremacy ou its own grounds, and they served to

provide a vivid illustration of the truth of the remark made many years ago by a famous Welsh

J i footballer who was tour ing New i Zealand: “In my country, t'ootI ball is a national institution: in 5 !*vours, it is a religion !” )!' For the best part of three months. New Zealand has been football mad. This remarkable wave of public fervour reached its peak points on June 21, July 5, July 26 and August 9 On those dates close on 150,000 people oblivious of national depression, verbose poll-, ticlans, floods, snowstorms and other misfortunes, crammed themselves into the four chief football grounds of the Dominion to see the British play. And a niggardly Rugby Union, which grudges Dominion Pressmen facilities to report a vital test match, at the same time accepting columns and columns of tree publicity from every paper in the country, wil presently be whooping over something like £20,000 clear profit. Not since the South Africans were here has Rugby experienced such a vintage year in New Zealand. The last ten days of May were sufficient for the British to give a taste of their quality as invaders. In four matches they rattled up 95 points to 24, and swept the representatives of four North Island provinces off their feet with the speed, cleverness and resource of a young and virile combination, out to make a name for itself on tour. Small wonder that even some of our shrewdest critics were moved to almost extravagant praise of the visitors. Fewer now will accept the view that these young Britons were better than the dour Springboks, but their first, startling run of successes over two months ago, followed by a dramatic victory in the first test at Dunedin, provided sufficient to encourage that belief at the time it was uttered. .As has been said before, that sensational try of Morley’s in the first famous “snowstorm” test at Dunedin made the tour. It was >. worth anything up to £IO,OOO in cold, hard cash to the New Zealand Rugby Union! e Let us examine the records of - Springbok and Briton. The giants from the veld played 19 games in New Zealand: they lost two and drew two, leaving them with 15 victories. This year’s c ! British team played 21 games, and lost i six. leaving it also with 15 victories. y But the Africans were beaten only | I twice, and only after two terrific R tussles, one against Canterbury and

the other against the All Blacks. The present British side was beaten in three tests out of four, and also lost to three of the provinces. Two of its defeats, the Auckland game and the fourth Test, were by overwhelming margins. The strength of the Springboks lay in their ponderous forwards, and that of the British in their flashing backs. When the latter had a day off, the whole side was in Queer Street.

The Springboks never disclosed their true strength in New Zealand. Early in the tour, they set about building up a well nigh impregnable defence, coupled with their well known tactics of wearing down the opposition with massed forward rushes and incessant back play to the side-lines. There is

room for the belief that, in adopting these tactics, they over-estimated the strength of New Zealand football in the early stages of their tour, and that it was only after their victory at Auckland that it dawned on them that the opposition was not so formidable as they thought. Had not the weather intervened at Wellington, we might have seen them exploiting different tactics in the final Test, but it is now only possible to judge them on the general form they showed on tour—and that

was convincing enough, in all conscience! There is good reason to believe that this year’s All Black teams were below the standard of a few years ago, a belief which can be supported by the fact that generally about one-third of the team consisted of players who were at their best six years ago. That, however, is by the way. The British were definitely inferior to the best New Zealand teams in scrum work, tactics and rearguard defence. Maybe, they pinned too much faith on the value of incessant passing attacks to pull them out of the lire at critical periods of their games, but the tact remains that when these attacks were held in check, and the British tested in their turn, they often disclosed grievous gaps in their lines.

It can be said unhesitatingly that they played a more constructive type of game than the All Blacks did. They were out all the time to make the game bright and open, whereas Wellington's victory by spoiling tactics was apparently made the somewhat humiliating process by which the cunning old veterans in the New Zealand team wore them down step by step into the overwhelming defeat of the fourth test.

Although the honours of the Tests are with New Zealand, the British deserve a greater relative share of the playing honours of the series. Had they elected to follow the same tactics as the All Blacks, the Tests would probably have been a dreary business of each side trying to take advantage of the other’s mistakes. The British possessed a great forward in Beamish, but I hardly think he was equal to the plunging Van Rooycn, the “human tank” of the Springboks. The Africans played a harder game than the British did. Spong, who would rank as a first-flve-eighth in our system of play, was better than any inside back the Springboks possessed. But the British did not have a threequarter-back of Zeller’s class.

New Zealand has no cause for extravagant enthusiasm about the display of its Test teams. At a time when both Canterbury and Wellington had beaten the visitors, the All Blacks were fighting desperately with their backs to the wall, and it was left to Auckland to lead the way with a smashing defeat of the British. That victory did a good deal to restore New Zealand’s battered prestige. It showed clearly how the British could be beaten, and it may be said that after that crushing defeat the British never seemed to recover their old brilliance in big games. The All Blacks* final victory was

complete in every way. in the two previous Tests, New Zealand had won largely by a display of negative virtues, and by the fine kicking and strategical skill of Mark Nicholls. In a somewhat similar way, the fourth test was a personal triumph for C. G. Porter and A. E. Cooke. It was Porter’s last game for New Zealand, and a wonderful finish to the career of as fine a man who ever wore an All Black jersey. Porter, as a wing-forward, may be criticised, but as a sportsman and a man his name will remembered in New Zealand football when his great playing record is forgotten. The vital lessons of the British tour for New Zealand are that its methods of selection are in need of an overhaul. New Zealand won the Test series not because of the teams that were picked, but in spite of the way they were picked. There is every reason to believe that the All Blacks would have gained a decisive victory sooner if the mistake had not been made before the Dunedin Test of supposing that old players will last for ever. Apparently, too, the idea of the Big

Six was to select a team tor the first Test which, with little alteration, would do for the entire series. This was sound enough in theory, and the combination which was steadily worked up reached its peak at Wellington, and was a vital factor in the final victory. Two who were given a chance, Corner and McLean, were an immediate success. But even the British themselves were surprised that the All Black teams remained practically unchanged in their main essentials throughout the series. “We would sooner play the All Blacks any day of the week than, say, the Auckland forwards and the Canterbury backs.” was how one member of the party put it. The Old Guard justified itseir at the finish, but it may be suggested that better results could have been obtained in the second and third tests if the All Blacks had included a leavening of the youthful dash and constructive ability shown by the British. Even if there were too many of them, the veterans of 1924 deserve full credit for leading Xew Zealand to victory in three Tests out of four. They were the All Blacks’ sheet-anchor. Of course, it might be added that the old ship didn’t need a sheetanchor so much as it did more speed and driving power after it struck that storm in Dunedin!