ENGLAND BEATS WALES AT RUGBY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 47, 25 February 1939, Page 4

ENGLAND BEATS WALES AT RUGBY

ONE-TRY VICTORY 70,000 AT TWICKENHAM J. HEATON’S GREAT SCORE The international Rugger war always begins by England meeting Wales. This agitating occasion, which brought all the red berets over the border and up to London in fine force, was staged on Saturday, January 21 at Twickenham, before about 70,000 spectators, and, to the surprise, if not the consternation of all the prophets and experts, resulted in a victory for England, which was, in plain fact, a good deal more decisive than the score suggests. The All Whites won by a try to nothing, but on the day's form they were value for far more than that. It is my opinion that, under fair weather conditions and on firm turf, England might have run up a modest cricket score, writes an English correspondent. This was, as I say, right against the prophets, if not against the odds. Even England’s august selectors did not expect it, having watched from their reserved seats three reputed “England” teams whacked to a frazzle by scratch sides in successive trial matches. Such was the panic, in fact, that Heaton, the match-winning Liverpool and Lancashire centre-three-quarter, was actually brought into the England team against Wales. On his first appearance at Twickenham in a trial, some years ago, Heaton gave such a superb display that the crowd gave him a unique ovation. But our revered selectors played him for England only once. They spread the rumour that he could not defend! Neither Liverpool nor Lancashire, for whom he has been largely instrumental in winning county honours, ever suspected that weakness.

Finest Attacking Back And at Twickenham, nobody who saw Heaton tackling Woolier and his Welsh associates could have suspected it. Nevertheless, that silly cackle has deprived England in lean years of the services of the finest attacking back now playing Rugger. But some of our selector veterans prefer the bloom of youth to have passed off their Rugger peaches. They choose players when they are approaching the pensionable age! One apologises for this long aside, but our selection committee really deserves it. Nothing but the comic showing up their aged England pack got in the trial games for the fresh young captains forced them to drop the Methuselahs from our scrum against Wales. But what a difference it made!

Because this surprise victory over Wales, supposed to be a team of all the talent, was fundamentally a triumph for the England forwards. If any of England’s discarded scrum veterans watched the match, as they surely did, it must have eased their amour propre to note that the youthful blades who defeated them so aggressively were doing still worse to a Welsh pack which had been warranted both hefty and skilful. In the scrums there was not a tremendous lot in it. Perhaps Toft got the ball for England three times out of five. But in the loose, in cleverly holding up the ball when the enemy wingers were hovering and getting it away fast when they were not, and above all in dribbling at breakneck speed without losing control of the ball, this young England pack carries one's memory back over the years. It was the novelty of old-style forward play that helped to disorganise the Welshmen. These English forwards shoved like navvies, every man jack of them, collared like vacuum cleaners, sprinted like Bashi-Bazooks. dribbled like League champions, and did all this with a kind of icy ferocity that made them irresistible. In such a pack of epic heroes it , would be wicked to pick and choose for special commendation. Yet it must be said, even allowing for one grievous missed pass which ought to have meant a certain English try, that long, strong, fast Oxonian, young R. M. Marshall, in the middle of the back row, touched heights of Rugger greatness. His figure seemed to be everywhere at once. Whether in attack or defence. Marshall was in the forefront of battle. But he was magnificently backed up by all the rest of our forwards. Berry and Watkins being tireless and remorseless in worrying the enemy’s backs and leading dribbling sorties against, their line.

Giant in the Lineouts. Finally, just mentioning Huskisson's gigantic stature in the lineouts, which he used to such purpose that Wales gave up such entertainments in favour of a scrum from which they did not get the ball, one must award high laurels to Captain Toft, the one surviving veteran of the scrum, for his valiant hooking, but still more for his leadership. He urged and led his rqen on like an inspired commander, and his sturdy shoulder mowed down many an aspiring scarlet Welsh jersey.