BRITISH TEAM’S TACTICS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1059, 25 August 1930, Page 1

BRITISH TEAM’S TACTICS

DEFENCE BY MR. W. HORNIG QUESTION OF OBSTRUCTION Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. An explanation was made by Mr. W. Hornig at the annual smoke concert of the Petone Rugby Club of the “ob- \ struction tactics” of the British Rugby j team in its matches in New Zealand, j He said the visiting team played a standard of football that could well be imitated by New Zealand clubs. “We have seen and heard a lot about fhe visitors’ tactics,” he said, "but I would like to make an explanation. I saw the first match the British team played in the Dominion against Wanganui and I thought it was obstructing in a way that was rather foreign! to us. After seeing the team play two other games I was a bit dubious. After the third game I was talking to a friend who had seen Rugby played in England, Scotland, Ireland and France and he told me the thing that struck him at Home was the amount of obstruction going on. Another man, after the first Test, who had just returned from Home, said he saw the obstruction referred to. “I came to the conclusion then, and 1 am certain that any obstruction by the British team was not deliberate, but was its ordinary style of game. We considered it unfair but they did not. They considered our wingforward illegal but we did not. After all, why should we get hot under the collar about all these arguments on tactics. It’s only a game after all.”