FOOTBALL.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 March 1922, Page 8

FOOTBALL.

FRENCH RUGBY IMPRESSES. 4’ ' BRILLIANT BUT ORTHODOX. < BACKS. f • In the light of the possibilities of a French Rugby Union team touring New South Wales and New Zealand shortly, these impressions by Dr. H. M. Moran, the Wallaby captain, written fresh from Paris, will highly interest New Zealanders. Dr. H. M. Moran is re-visiting Europe on a health and a professional tour. In the war the Wallaby captain had some very rough experiences along the Tigris in the earlier efforts by the British Forces to reach Bagdad, and the visit to Europe with his family is mainly for health. Writing from Paris on December 30, Dr. Moran said:— “When 13 years ago we were here (to the day) Rugby was an exotic growth; now; it is the national bloom. And France is football mad. I am sending you' some of the illustrated sporting papers, Le Miroir and Le Sporting, which may help you to judge the form of the men going out. Certainly if France sends her best team they will beat us even with the improvement likely to follow the visit of the South Africans. And, by the way, you can’t convince me that those South Africans were a great side. It’s the prerogative of a has-been to think that the Wallabies would have beaten them comfortably.” A later letter is from Paris, January 8. HOW THE FRENCH DO IT. “At the France-Scotland Rugby match on January 2, I was handed, on entering the ground, a pamphlet which sought to educate the spectator both in the laws of the game and in the true spirit of sport. I started from Paris shortly after twelve, and stood in a crowd for an hour and a half in the drizzling rain in the most expensive area, awaiting the sacred hour of 2.30 to catch a glimpse of the players. “The crowd was very patient, very humorous and very like the average Australian crowd —for those in the 15 franc area did not hesitate to throw gravel at the people in front when they excitedly got up from their chairs and thus obstructed the view. In the first half' the French had much the better of the play. Their backs were brilliant, but much too orthodox. The ball went out each time to the wing—there were no efforts to cut through, no stab kicking of the kind that A. Halloway perfected, no reverse passing; but what they did do (apart from a tendency to pass too soon without having drawn their opponents) was done brilliantly, at great pace and with wonderful accuracy. On a dry ground with a proper share of the ball from the scrum they would electrify the Sydney crowd. FRENCH POOR SCRUMMAGERS. “Their scrum was poor; they packed much too high, and the Scottish pack got the ball with monotonous regularity. This, however, only illustrates what is the dominant note in French football, namely, their opportunism. The Scottish forwards got the ball, but it was the French three-quarters who, all through the first half, attacked. They started from line-outs, from miskicks, from ruck works, from anywhere; and their only try was initiated by their full-back running his three-quar-ters into position in a way common in league football, but still too rare in our game. DISAPPOINTING SCOTTISH TEAM. “The second half was one of incessant and unpolished efforts on the Scottish part, and of dour resistance in the rain on the part of the French forwards, who were powerful and ineffective. But then forwards, while dominating a game are often ineffective. I remember the Irish forwards in 1910 sweeping the English team off the ground at Twickenham for three-quarters of the game, only to have their one score equalised in the last ten minutes by the brilliancy of the Harlequin backs, who composed England’s rear line. COMMONPLACE HALF.

“The Scottish backs gave no sort of exhibition, and had innumerable chances. It struck me that their inside-half was impossible. He was of that game, rugged, defensive type that labors in his efforts to initiate passing rushes, and who, in a Welsh team, would have been given a game in the forwards, if at all. The function of a half is, first, last and all the time, to feed his backs, and he should be able to get the ball out like lightning, and with accuracy, with one hand or on his head. He and his fiveeighth should know each other so well that it is not even necessary to look round to see one another’s positions each should feel it instinctively. They used to say in Wales that the famous James brothers slept always in the one room for the sake of combination, and vet in 1922 one finds a Scottish side in which the half and five-eighth are chosen from different teams. WELSH RUGGER POSSIBILITY. “The possibilities for French football are immense. I have no doubt that ultimately the Northern Union will make some inroads; as it was in N.S.XV., it is here at present mainly a question of grounds. And 1 don’t know that professionalism of the North England type will be acceptable to the great body of Frenchmen: I am not competent to speak on that matter. “What I can say, from conversation with many people casually, both on the way to and from the ground, is that the average spectator is very sporting in his outlook and there does not appear the fierce partisanship that exists with us. But then they have grown inured to defeat; wait till they taste victory more regularly. That will be the test.”