Rugby Survey

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 773, 14 May 1954, Page 15

Rugby Survey

"\/7OU wouldn’t say to a boxer between rounds three and four: ‘You're doing well, son, but you’re lucky Jack Dempsey isn’t here. He’d have knocked you cold long ago!’ Well, don’t say it to your footballers," This advice to New Zealand Rugby enthusiasts comes in the course of a new series of talks by Winston McCarthy entitled Rugby in the World Today. New Zealand’s own play, he says, suffers from its slowness to adapt and the tendency of its supporters to look backwards. Before 1949, when the All Blacks finally mastered the three-fronted scrum, New Zealand had spent 20 years lamenting the passing of the two-fronted scrum and trying to bring it back. This, in part, is McCarthy’s answer to the title of his first talk: "Is the Game What It Was?" It isn’t what it was, he says, it never will be, and "thank goodness for that." In a second talk, entitled "New Zealand’s Contribution,’ Mr. McCarthy considers the wing-forward, the fiveeighth, and the 2-3-2 scrum, which were New Zealand’s gifts to the game of Rugby. He points out, too, that our chances of influencing the game are limited by the fact that New Zealand, Australia and South Africa together are heavily outweighed on the International Board by the four home unions of Great Britain. The last two talks in the series are titled "Play and Players in Other Countries," and "New Zealand and South Africa." The talks will be broadcast by.all YA and YZ stations at 9.15

p-m. on the following Mondays: May 17 and 31, and June 7 and 14. Empire Games As a salute to the Empire Games, which are being held this year in Vancouver, the Canadian Broadéasting Corporation has prepared a programme including contributions from 25 competing countries. Recordings of this afe expected in New Zealand shortly, and are scheduled to be broadcast by the YA and YZ stations at 9.15 p.m. on Empire Day, Monday, May 24. Yvette Williams, Olympic gold medallist and breaker of the world longjump record, will be heard in the programme as New Zealand’s contributor. She expresses something of the spirit of the Games when = she says: ". . + whether our efforts meet with success or not, we are certain that we shall take from the sports arenas of Canada a better understanding of the peoples who make up the British Empire."