“ITS ONLY A GAME”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1060, 26 August 1930, Page 8

“ITS ONLY A GAME”

ONE of the soundest contributions to discussions of Rugby tactics is the remark of Mr. W. Hornig that Rugby is, after all, “only a game.” From the intense earnestness with which features of the British Rugby team’s play were discussed, it might have been assumed that in tlie matches between Britain and New Zealand something far more than tlie prestige of the football field was involved. Tlie one respect in which the tour could not be considered an unqualified success-lay in tlio discord which these discussions were allowed to precipitate. The blame was not one-sided. Mr. Baxter, the British team’s manager, both in his earlier public utterances and in liis dealings with the officials of local Rugby Unions, was not always a model of tact. But a sense of proportion and an appreciation of the inevitable human factor would have removed or smoothed out many of tlie misunderstandings. As far as the charges of obstruction are concerned, Mr. Hornig adopts the view that any obstructive tendencies apparent in tlie play of the visitors were rather a reflection of the style of Rugby permitted in Great Britain than any evidence of a delib-erately-planned policy evolved with the object of defeating New Zealand in the Test matches. This moderate view opposes that of Mr. E. McKenzie, the chairman of the New Zealand Selection Committee, whose attack on the British team’s methods was at once one of the most sensational and most regrettable happenings during the tour. On reflection, however, it is possible that-even Mr. McKenzie regrets liis attack. Certainly'few have been found to defend it. The fact is that Rugby in different quartersT'of the Empire breeds its own individual peculiarities, for which allowance must be made when international sides meet.

For tlieir own part, the British Rugby players believed that they were handicapped in New Zealand by local scrumming interpretations, which they considered gave the 2—3—2 formation a distinct advantage in hooking against their own formation of 3—2—3. It is possible that this is an explanation of tlieir mediocre showing in this important phase of the game. In any case, though their"view that they would do better against a 32 —3 scrum appears to have been borne out by tlie conclusive result of the match against New South Wales on Saturday, they refrained in New Zealand from making any public mention of it. While New Zealand regards certain overseas methods of .playing Rugby as curious and even objectionable, overseas followers of the game may, and actually do, regard some of our own stratagems in the same light. The differences are largely matters of temperament and tradition, and, viewed in a broad' sense, they do not often amount to much. When they do, it is as well to remember with Mr. Hornig that Rugby football, though so vastly important, is after all “only a game.”