THE CHINA MAIL, APRIL 29, 1937.
RUGBY SEASON MOST ENCOURAGING
ENGLAND TRIUMPH ON SCRUMMAGING IRELAND THE TEAM OF
THE YEAR
S
INTERPRETATION OF LAWS
(By HOWARD MARSHALL)
London, April 7.
the Rugby season ends, as Mr. T. S. Eliot remarked on another occasion, "not with a bang, but a whimper." A reference, you will realise, to last Saturday's match between Wales Now and Ireland, which was a sad anti-climax. we have only a few club games and the seven-a- side tournament before we sit back and make our reckonings.
RALPH FLANAGAN
Ralph Flanagan, above, one of America's leading middle distance swimmers and a "placer" at the Berlin Olympiad in the 800 and 1,500 Metres, will shortly be seen in Japan with two other U.S. swimmers.
A dísppointing year for them, but IT WOULD BE A MISTAKE, I THINK, TO BE TOO DE- not altogether without encourage-. PRESSED BY THE BELFAST FIASCO. THE PLAYERS THERE ment. WERE OBVIOUSLY JADED, AND THE GENERAL DREARI- Scotland also found their for- NESS OF THE GAME MERELY REMINDED US THAT THE wards unsatisfactory, and I sus- SEASON IS MUCH TOO LONG. I CAN NEVER RESIST THE pect that they will have to modify TEMPTATION TO ARGUE THAT IT SHOULD BEGIN IN the method whereby they choose OCTOBER AND END IN MARCH. THEY ARRANGE THESE good players irrespective of their THINGS BETTER IN SCOTLAND.
specialist positions in the scrum- There has been some discussion about the refereeing at Bel-mage. Then there was the loss of fast. Mr. Allan, of Scotland, they say, was too lenient. When the R. C. S. Dick, who could not play forwards lost their tempers and set about one another in the second in Scotland's last two matches, a half he should have sent the culprits off the field.
The
My own sympathies in this matter are with Mr. Allan. trouble flared up suddenly, and it was impossible to tell who start- ed it. There were two outbreaks of violence, both of them quickly over, and it seemed to me that Mr. Allan handled a 'difficult situation very competently.
UNIMPORTANT Rugby football is not a nursery game Tempers do get frayed now and again, and I expect most of us have brawled a bit in our time. I do not suggest that brawling is a good or even excusable habit. only submit that it is relatively unimportant.
Amba
mage rule which was tried in one or two matches, but the fact that it was considered at all is signi- we are thinking ficant proof that about the game.
:*
serious misfortune. Dick might have made all the difference to the Scottish mid-field attack.
INTERPORTER PASSES THROUGH COLONY
G. S. Dunkley On Way To Shanghai
Cricket enthusiasts will be in- terested to learn that
G.
S.
Dunkley, probably the finest wicket-keeper ever to have repre- sented Hong Kong at cricket, arrived in the Colony yesterday in the s.s. Rawalpindi, en route to Shanghai.
Dunkley during a fairly" pro- tracted stay here, never missed an Interport and was always a first choice for the team. The Rawal- pindi sails for Shanghai to-day.
FINCHER-ANNIHILATED BY RUMJAHN
(Continued from Page 18) would. It is difficult to decide whe- ther he was completely off form or whether the extraordinary display of Rumjahn gave him no chance.
It was noteworthy that, in the initial stages when he won the first three games with comparative ease, all Fincher's strokes appeared to be working with the utmost fluency. His forehand drive, usually far from reliable, was finding the corn- ers with great consistency. He was serving with great accuracy and power and altogether the general opinion was that he was at last going to figure on the winning end of a big match.
OUT-GENERALLED
Then came those Rumjahn fire- works. The inimitable I.R.C. player left him no loopholes in any depart-
THE PUZZLE OF WALES Finally, Wales, and how the Wel-ment. He was outdriven, outvolley- so completely outplayed shmen slid from holding the cham-ed and
he became completely de- pionship last year to qualifying for that the wooden spoon this year is just moralised in the knowledge that a one of those things. Wales have successful counter from the other suffered mainly, in my opinion, at side of the net would be the ulti- half-back. Haydn Tanner has lost mate end of any coup he could at- that swiftness which used to be tempt. his great asset. He wastes the vital second or two before he gives his beautiful passes, and he has fallen into the bad habit of running a pace or so with the ball.
Teddy, after the first four games, never looked happy His forehand gave him a considerable amount of worry and he seemed to be caught in two minds to drive or to chop.
and in the end,
BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES We are thinking, moreover, of the true principles of forward play,
At one stage he decided that hi and for this reason alone I am glad
The injury which kept Cliff Jones out of international football was a chop was the more reliable, and so that the English pack carried Eng more serious blow than at first it he chopped. Not meeting with any land to victory in the international appeared to be. Wales could not success with this stroke he went The man who habitually goes championship.
find a worthy successor. W. T. H. back to driving berserk and loses his temper and It is only fair to say that Ireland laya about him is a menace. What were the team of the year, and justice Davies seems to be but a ghost of whatever he did seemed to either is more, he is a bad player, for self-would have been done had they ended his old brilliant self: R. R. Morris's strike the net-cord or go soaring into the sight-screen. He could Even so, the fact individualism did not prove pro- control is one of the essential up as champions.
that a mediocre English side were fitable with such grand players as never produce anything like a pass- qualities in a good footballer. The saved from defeat primarily by the W. Wooller, Claude Davey and ing stroke and missed innumerable occasional mix-up between two work of the forwards is a most valu-
Idwal Recs waiting for their opportunities of "killing" when he packs, however, is another matter able lesson.
had drawn a weak return from an altogether, an incidental stupidity
chances.
outpositioned opponent, which calls for little comment.
BEATEN BY THE LAWS A far more serious accusation against a referee would be that he turned the blind eye to systematic cheating. On this score. we may absolve Mr. Allan at once. Mr. Allan is one of those-conscientious referees who attempt to interpret the laws literally. He did his best
ly in the game, but eventually he was beaten..
There have been better English packs since the war. This one had its limitations. It would do little more than shove and heel, and the great packs of the past would have recovered next scrummaged
The Welsh machine, in short, lacked the essential cogs, and we must hope that Cliff Jones, is fully winter and that it to bits. It was Tanner strikes his best form again. something, though, to find English forwards basing their work on solidity, and the moral should be assimilated by club sides through- out the country.
VIRTUES NEGATIVE
£10,000 FOR WINNER
"OF FRENCH RACE
WRONG TACTIC
I feel that there would have been a far different result if Teddy had forced home his advantage in the first set. Within an ace of win- ning the fourth game to give him- self a 4-0 lead, he persisted in
duels. the driving maintaining from the baseline which had been
If he had forced matters more at
Paris, April 6.- The winner's successful enough before Rumjahn with scrummage infringement ear- Apart from this, England's vir- prize money for the race at Long-found his touch.
tues were mainly negative, if we champ, the Prix de l'Arc de Triom- The scrummage laws cannot be except the match-winning genius phe, to be run in October, has been this stage, adopted the initiative interpreted literally, and this match of H. S. Sever, on the left wing. doubled to £10,000. The owner of and from the forecourt prevented gave us a thorough demonstration of The mid-field defence, H. G. Owen- the second horse will receive £1,500, Rumjahn from making his strokes The in his own time, he would have won the fact. If referees are to do their Smith's ability at full-back-these third £1,000, and fourth £500. job with impartial uniformity they were the rocks upon which the breeder of the winner will be award-the set and instead of being up must be helped by laws which are
other countries foundered. And in led $1,000. both intelligible and practicable.
MANY VARIETIES
F. J. Reynolds England have dis-
And if players do sometimes lose covered a stand-off half who has. their tempers, the sources of ir-constructive ideas about mid-field ritation may often be traced to the attack. That, in itself, is sufficiently varieties of interpretation which stimulating.
the laws encourage.
Ireland, to our surprise, failed
against an opponent with the moral advantage of being a set to the good, and enabled to go for win- ners, he, in his tum, might have been able to dictate terms.
Be that as it may, full marks Auckland, April 3.-G. O. Allen, must be given to "S. A. for once
ALLEN TO STAY IN CALIFORNIA
Now what of the season as a with, their forwards in the tight. the M.C.C. captain, will not return again proving himself as a "big the rest of the match" player, tinged with regret whole? My own view is that there They had in G. T, Morgan the best to England with has been much to enconrage us. I scrum-half of the season, and their team. He will leave the party at that Teddy has once again been doubt whether we shall hear much attack was capable, as we saw at Los Angeles and stay with friends within striking distance of a title more of the experimental scrum- Twickenham, of classical brilliance, lin California until the end of May, and once again failed.