"ALL BLACKS" AGAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 February 1919, Page 7

"ALL BLACKS" AGAIN.

SF3S SOIDIEB-eiDB.. - | , JIG TOUR IN OLD WORU* \ People who have read brief, unsatisfactory eftbled repprU of matches between "AH Blacks" against .English aud Welsh teams may have an impression that merely "scratch aides" have represented New Zealand- A Welsh paper remarked before the match at Swansea ■ on Boxing Day: 'The mistake should not be made of thinking that this is just one of the ordinary All Black teams which so '" ■ juently play second-rate clubs in the Principality, for such an idea would be entirely erroneous. The side coming to Swansea is being carefully chosen from many thousands of available men in France, and will play a series of games in France so as to get used to one another's methods. The colonials make no secret of the fact that their team will, without a shadow of doubt, be one of the most formidable sides which lias ever toured. The players are Toning specially reserved for international matches only_, and will not arrange any fixtures, unless against representative; national fifteens." The plain truth is that this touring team is under the management of the N.Z.E.F. Sport Control Board, of which the secretary is Regimental Staff-Ser-geant M.P. Naughlon, of Wellington. In a letter to a relative in Wellington, Sergeant Naughtou states: —"On au average I send and receive about fifty telegrams a day, and have special reporters from all the London papers waiting on me daily. The papers over here call us wonderful people, and one paper had myself as the 'secretary on wires.' We are playing All Wales at Swansea on Boxing Day (you will see the report of it in the cables) and also at Cardiff on New Year's Day. They expect 60,000 people present, and the whole show is to bo kinematographed; so vou will see it all later on. "Then we play the Midland Counties p.t Leicester, and later play in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and after that at Dublin and Cork. Then we go over and play one match in Paris and one on the Rhine. Then follows one in Rome. "After coming homo we play Devon af Devonport, All Wales again on Easter Monday at Swansea, a_nd finally wind up by playing the biggest game in the history of Rugby against an All British team, composed of ajl internationals from England, Scotland, Wales, and- Ireland. "In addition to all this travelling, for which I have to arrange guarantees to the extent of close on £1250,1 have also to arrange Association football, hockey, boxing, and cross-country matches for the whole New Zealand Expeditionary Force; and every month I have to make a report to the War Office, London."