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Panorama of the Playground
Rugby, 1934—and after.

(By “Playboy.”)

October racing to its end leaves behind it, in something like perspective, another season of football. Not since 1923, when with 1924 (now but a glorious memory) and its visit to England in prospect, has any season aroused such keen public interest.

Now it is all over, what are our reactions? For myself, one of uneasiness. Club, Interprovincial, New Zealand v. Australia, North v. South, and all the trials have, to my mind, shown a decided slump in the standard of our play. It is not that we have in sight no successors to Cooke and Nicholls, for instance. It is rather in the features which made New Zealand football something apart from that of all other countries, that we have failed.

I do not think that even the most rabid optimist would claim for our backs of to-day that among them is a single one who could compare with any of the first seven backs of the 1924 team. Not only that, the play is different. In what matches of this year have we seen the straight-running, quick penetration of the inside backs of old, or the lightning flash of the ball along the chain from scrum half to wing threequarter? And on the wing, where has there been anything seen to compare with one of those long, powerful runs of a Jack Steel, or the sudden flash over the line of a Snowy Sven son?

Drab monotony—where the reverse passing down the line of a pair like Cooke and Lucas—where the quick centreing kick by a boxed-up winger—or his swinging cross kick from one side of the field to his fellow winger on the other? Rush after rush breaking down belore the centre gets it and finishing where? After listening-in to the first test in Sydney one disgusted fan said to me: “This sums it up. Play is on the Aussie twenty-five. Hadley hooks the ball—half to first, to second-five-eighths, to centre to wing—play is now at half way. Not until Hart's exhibition in the last match of the season North v. South, at Dunedin—did we see even the shadow of a truly All Black wing display.

During the Australian tour it seemed that we were beaten because the Australians had improved as a result of the visit to South Africa. The New Zealand v. The Rest, at Athletic Park, convinced me that Australian football was no better than of old.

And let not our forwards plume themselves. Vigour, enthusiasm they have in plenty, but what else? And on the line-out—how many times did we see a passing rush among the backs started from a take and a clean pass back? Delude ourselves if we like, the cold fact remains that our forwards this season have had to make up with hard work what they so lamentably lacked in football brains and skill. In one respect alone they outdid all teams of the past—in offside play and scrum offences. Though the Athletic Park crowd so severely criticised Mr. Paton for his penalties against The Rest, the number of free kicks he gave against the Blacks that day was a complete vindication of the Australian referees.

In searching for a reason, one thing seems to me to stand out—our subservience to other people's wishes. For the sake of international amity (all the time it is New Zealand that has been called upon to make the sacrifice for football peace) we have abandoned our own particular scrum formation—and with it the wing forward. Now what have those sacrifices meant?

In the first place a revolution of our scrum ideas. The old tradition of the wedge with every man a specialist— and a worker—has given place to what? Judging from what we have seen this year in particular, just chaos, in the front, time after time a sheer impasse; in the middle, a spinelessness that horrifies anyone with a recollection of the firmly locked scrum of old, and in the back that anachronism—one lone figure trying to balance aganist nothing. And what is the advantage of the vaunted quick hooking in a scrum the very formation of which puts a premium on a quick break-up? The one and only real result of our abolition of the wing forward is the creation of four others, who nullify any advantage of getting possession of the ball. The forwards have been given such free rein as spoilers that the backs work under an insurmountable handicap—insurmountable through lack of space and somethin else as well.

That something else? A change in the line up of our backs. Until quite recent years the traditional line up was a deep, wide formation, thus:

Now it is thus:

Not even a copy of the English play, thus:

The effects of this? In place of every man starting off at top with pace on an ascending scale from half to wing, and running dead straight ahead. a state of affairs where everyone is flat-footed when he receives the ball, with the opposing backs right on top of him. Notice the difference disclosed by the third diagram. The English chain is deep but close, with play on a diagonal. But the English specialise in fast wings capable of running round a slower opposition—as we found in 1930 on more than one occasion.

It is time for us to take thought with ourselves in these matters, and one other. Selectors seem to have fallen into a rut. They have made experiments that were not so much experiments as variations on an old theme. The selection of the North Island team, with its choice of Nunn and Solomon instead of Sadler and Hedge (the two youngsters who alone of the thirty taking part in the Auckland-Wellington match showed a spark of genius) is a case in point.

One wonders how far public opinion conforms to the views of the selectors. The “Railways Magazine” is curious. It invites you to take part in a straw ballot for the selection on this year's form and promise. Readers are requested to select a team of twenty-nine, fifteen forwards and fourteen backs. Do not trouble to pick for wards for any position, but place your backs—two halves, four five-eighths, three centres, four wings, and two full backs—roughly corresponding to the original selection of the 1924 team, and let us have your selections not later than 30th November. The voting will be given in our January issue.