(16) HOW BIG WERE THE GIANTS?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 39, Issue 989, 1 August 1958, Page 6

(16) HOW BIG WERE THE GIANTS?

'ERE the players of the past as good as the players of today? How would, say, the 1924 All Blacks have got on against the 1956 team? Well, I don’t think you can really answer those questions. Looking at the game through the rose-hued glasses of youth, people will always go for the team they felt was greatest at their particular time. All the same, I have my own opinion, and I would say that a pack of 30 years ago could no more stand up to an All Black pack of today than a primary school team could stand up to a team from a secondary school. I'll explain why. I have a good memory for certain things, and I can remember when I was ‘a boy. at school watching football matches at Athletic Park. I remember watching one of the 1924 trials from the Western Bank. Bert Cooke made a magnificent break through the field, as he could, and as he got to the full-back he unloaded to a forward. It was Cyril Brownlie, and he dropped the ball right in front of the posts. Everyone was in an uproar, standing up, cheering this great move of Cookie’s, and when Cyril dropped the ball down they sat and just went "oooer." But they all said the one thing: "Oh, well, he’s only a forward, anyhow." Can you see the. implication? His job was to get stuck in in the forwards, and when that was done his job was finished. Now a forward of today not only has to ruck, to scrummage-if he starts dropping passes when he should

be up the centre of the field taking them he’s out of the team. And every forward in that team has a job to do of cover defence. New Zealanders, of course, are the greatést cover defenders in the world. It’s just something that has emergad, and it has heen taught in the schools,. and automatically* these young people take it up into big football. Then we must take account of the size of players. That 1924 pack had players of 12 and a-half stone in the forwards-under 12 stone in the forwards, in the front row. Goodness gracious me, unless a man in a front row today is at least 15 stone he’ll just buckle up-he couldn’t take the weight. Just imagine a man of 12 stone giving everything he has for 80 minutes against a man of 15 or 16 stone. He might have the biggest heart in the world, but by the end of 80 minutes, by the end of 70 minutes, he’d be just ground into the ground -and couldn’t move. I remember talking to W. H. (Boy) Morkel on our first day in Cape Town in 1949. Boy Morkel was vice-captain of the 1921 Springboks in New Zealand and a famous Springbok. When he saw our players-mind you, many of them over-weight--he said, "You’ve got some big men." I said, "Yes, there are some 16-: stoners, Boy." He said, "No good." I asked him, "Why is that?" He said, "I will not have a forward over 14 and ahalf stone, because for any pound he carries over that he loses mobility." That

sounded very reasonable to me at the time. But look at the players we have today. Take Peter Jones, fighting fit at 16 stone three, as fast as any forward who ever went on a paddock. See how big Tiny White, at 16 stone, could run and last out a game. Look at Bob Duff and at Dann

Retief, the brilliant South African of 1956, look at all your forwards. . These men are faster than any forwards we’ve seen in the past, except for isolated cases like Jim Parker of 1924, or Nev Thornton. And not only are they faster, they’re fitter than players used to be, and they have to be fit. Because they have to go not only for 80 minutes as a forward, but as I said before they have to be up there-the flankers and the Number 8 men-for the passes from the backs; they have to be across for cover defence, to be over to that dropped ball the moment it gets there. In fact, they’re flat out for 80 minutes. And they have to be flat out for 80 minutes-that was the secret of the great Otago team that held the Ranfurly Shield for so long. When they went out for training they used to train for 80 minutes, for 90 minutes. And I

said to Vic Cavanagh one day when I was watching him down there and Roy Nieper was helping him slam the boys through: "Boy, oh, boy, you’re tough, aren’t you?" He had them flat out for an hour and a-half. Over to the rucks, the first man there he’d blow his whistle. "Where are you?" "I’m here." "Where should you be?" "There." "Well, get there." And off they’d go again. I said, "An hour and a-half, Vicky!" He said, "Look Mac, if they can’t do an hour and a-half here, how can they last 80 minutes flat out in qa real match?" That’s what they had to do-and what a modern forward has to do. And I’d say a modern pack would absolutely bury the teams of 30 years ago. I know that occasionally you'll get a player of 13 stone who will play up to the 15 stone mark, but not a whole pack of them. You’ll get a man like Maurice Brownlie who could stand out in any pack even though,he was only a 14-stoner when he was really at his peak. Or you could take the great man, Charlie Seeling, of the 1905 team. I didn’t see him play, but from what players at the time tell me he must have been a magnificent forward. Well, those sort of men could fit into a modern team. But a pack that averages 13 stone against one that averages 15 stone has no show in the world. And if they can’t do-it and are buried, I don’t care if they have all the Mark Nichollses and A. E. Cookes in the world, they can’t win. How do the backs of the past compare with the backs of today? Well, we must remember that this game has changed considerably. When we had the 2-3-2 scrum and didn’t have the number 8 lurking right out in the paddock at the end of a lineout to crash into you, we had an entirely different style of back play. I remember saying to Mark Nicholls just a few years ago: "Mark, tell me, would you be able to play the same type of five-eighth game today as you did in your prime, with the changes in the scrum and so on?" Mark said. "No, of course I couldn’t-not the same type of game." But of course Mark knew his ability, he was a great footballer, and he said he would have thought something out to be-a wee bit different-which I will grant he would

have done. You could have no rules for A. E. Cooke. Lewis Jones was the nearest approach to him, and Bob Scott the next one, because they were freaks at this game of football-you don’t set laws down for them. But I would say that with the different type of game the backs have to play today we have not got the brilliant individuals we had in the past. , Mark Nicholls I’ve mentioned, Kart Ifwersen of Auckland, A, E. Cookethey stand out as brilliant individualists. Who could compare with them in recent times? Fred Allen when he was at his peak, Johnny Smith quite definitelyhe could have gone into any teamMaurice Goddard when he was at his best-I’m talking about inside backs now. They could have fitted into those teams of the past. And there was Doc Elvidge, not for his absolute brilliance, but he was faster than you think, he was a great try scorer, and he would be in my team since the war as a second five-eighth. On the other hand, he didn’t have the side-stepping ability of men like Cooke and Nicholls. You see, his was a different type of game. He used to play in the Otago style-once into the 25 he would run, he would go down, he’d get out of it, he’d be back into position, he’d have another go on the right, and he’d end up scoring perhaps after the third or fourth ruck. He was a good player with a well thought out approach. You might ask: why haye we lost the brilliant individualists of the past in our inside backs? I would suggest it is because of the type of game being played today. Rugby changes every now and then, and today’s game calls for brilliance further out from the scrum than first or second five-eighth. Mind you, we do have men who can be brilliant but club coaches generally don’t want them that way. The brilliant individualist is no good to these men who want to play to a set pattern. I was talking to Vic Cavanagh one night at my home in ‘Wellington, where we used to have some wonderful talks on Rugby. I said, "Vic, I’m going to do something for you. I’m going to give you Jimmy Mill as a half-back. I'll give you Mark

Nicholls or Karl Ifwersen-you can please yourself-as first five-eighth and A. E. Cooke as second. I'll give you Johnny Smith as centre, Jarden on one wing and anyone you like to name on the other. .I’ll give you Bob Scott as full-back. Or you can have Fred Allen at five-eighth if you don’t want to go so far back. I’ll give you the lot of them in your Otago team." He said, "So what? What’s the answer?" I said, "Vic, you wouldn’t have any of them." He said, "You’re hard Mac.’ I said, "I’m not being hard." Those men were brilliant individualists. as well as good team players, but they could never have conformed to what Vic wanted. in his winning combination in that Otago team. They had to play to plan. I mean, just imagine Cookie, if he got the ball under his goal posts like Lewis Jones in that lovely try in Auckland, starting something off from his own goal line. Vic would have gone mad, really and truly. And he knew what I was aiming at, and even though he -didn’t entirely agree with me, I was only trying to emphasise a point. Still, ’'m not talking about Cavanagh when I come to coaches, because Cavanagh was something out of the box. I’m talking of club coaches who get in there to win games-which everybody tries to do-but it must be to their pattern. I’ve a case in mind. It was in Wellington. It was,a club team. I saw a youngster, a five-eighth, make a break, a beautiful break, and he just couldn’t help himself. He side-stepped and slipped his man and whoof! he suddenly stopped -for no reason at all-looking for somebody to pass to. I knew this lad and said to him afterwards, "What happened to you? A brilliant break through and yet you stopped." He said, "I was doing it

at practice, but the coach said to me, ‘Listen, any more of that and you're out of the team. I want that ball out into the back-line, and every time you get it feed it out there!’" And the lad told me he thought of this when he made the break through the opposition. He thought, "Oooh, I’m out of the team next week." And that is the sort of thing that has killed the individual brilliance in our football. That and the Number 8 forward, who has been knocking these fellows about right along the line, not wotrying about the ball, just hitting them-and, of course, our lack of firstclass half-backs. Now to set a backline alight you must be able to get the ball in the quickest possible time from the base of that scrum or the ruck out to your backs. Well, somehow or other we have lagged behind every country in the world in the calibre of our half-backs. Our pass-ing-well, you’ve only got to remember the passing of the two Springbok halves who were here in 1956-the length of their pass, how quickly they could throw the thing out. The length is something that we just can’t do in New Zealand. Take the British Isles halves who were here in 1950. Look at the pass Rimmer could throw out, Rex Willis and Gus Black. Goodness gracious me, they were throwing them 20 and 25 yards and landing them where they wanted to. Or you could take Cyril Burke or: little Cox, who played for Australia. Yet our players are good footballers. Why have we lagged behind with halfbacks? I don’t know, but I think it must have something to do with the early _stages in primary schools. I think many teachers now don’t take the interest in players they used to, I’m talking gener-

ally now. Some of them we know do take the interest. Anyway, we seem to have lost the art of half-back play. In South Africa in 1949 I was astounded with the half-back play. Every halfback we played against, right throughout the Union, you’d have put in an All Black team. And-strange but true-it was practically the same throughout the British Isles. Just to sum up, then, even though I say we haven’t the individual brilliance in our backs today that we had many years ago, I still feel the players of today would really over-run the players of the past-because of this super-fitness today, which they must have to last the 80 minutes. And today’s forwards would grind the lighter packs of the past into the ground. (Great players he has seen are discussed by Winston McCarthy in next week’s "Rugby in My Time.’ Mentioning first the great George Nepia, he compares his play with Bob Scott's, and among other backs he refers to J. B. Smith, A: E. Cooke and Mark Nicholls -‘Mr Brains." Ron Jarden is discussed as a "type. of freak" in Rugby, and Charlie Saxton as "the last of our halfbacks with the long pass."" Mr McCarthy names the most intelligent man he has seen on the side of the scrum and the greatest rucker, and he tells amusing stories of one of our great defensive backs. Recalling a conversation with Geoff Alley on the rigours of international football, he names a_ notable exception to the proposition that a man who gives everything a go in a strenuous Test season will never reach the same form again. With next year’s visit from a British Isles team in mind, Mr McCarthy ends with a comparison of individual and team play in Britain and New Zealand.)