Leaves Of A Sportfolio

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7278, 4 October 1933, Page 11

Leaves Of A Sportfolio

| OOKING back over the history ol Rugby matches for the Ranfurly Shield, 1 have noticed that only once in the 30-year history of the competition for the trophy has there been one other instance of a province’s having to defend the shield so often, in a correspondingly short period, as Canterbury lias had lo defend it this year. That solitary similar instance occurred in 1920, when Wellington, having held the trophy over the war years and throughout the 1918 season, in which matches for the shield were resumed, met 11 challengers in the one season. Six of these 11 challenge matches were played on Wellington’s home ground, but only three of the six were on consecutive Saturdays. Wellington, taking the shield on tour, lost it in the 11th match, which was with Southland, in Invercargill. In that year, though, the games for the shield had started as early as June 3, and it was with its last seven matches of the season that Wellington surpassed Canterbury’s record, to date this season, of having played seven matches in defence of the shield within seven weeks and a-half. Canterbury has actually played 10 matches in this period, but three of these were on tour and were not for the shield. In the 1919 and 1920 seasons Wellington played 16 matches for the shield, and won 14 of them. That number of shield matches for two seasons is a record for any province in the competition. Canterbury now has played 14 matches for the shield in two seasons.

The 16 matches in which Wellington defended the shield in the 1919 and 1920 seasons were against nine different challengers, for three unions—Canterbury, Taranaki, and Auckland—had three matches for the trophy in that period, their home-and-homc matches with Wellington in one of the two seasons being shield games. Canterbury has met 11 different challengers for the shield in 1932 and 1933.

Before the Great War there was only one season in which there were more than four matches for the Ranlurly Shield. The exception was the season of 1914, in which Taranaki met seven challenges, losing the shield to Wellington in the seventh. The seven matches of that year, however, were spread over a much longer period than in the Wellington and Canterbury instances which have been cited, the first of these games being played in June, and the second in July. In that year Taranaki had no more than four shield matches on consecutive Saturdays. Before 1914 there were no more than seven matches for the trophy in any two consecutive sea sons, although there were, until then, 10 seasons in which matches for it were played.

After cognisance is taken of the fact that three of Taranaki’s, matches in defence of the shield in 1914 were with nearby unions—Wanganui, Manawalu and Horowhenua—and the fourth was with a union not much farther away— Wnirarapa—it is apparent that the postwar competition for the shield has embraced a very much wider field than before, and that interest in it has increased enormously. The field has, indeed, become too wide and rather overcrowded. The strain on the team which has to defend the shield frequently has become too heavy for the players to get much enjoyment out of it all. There is not merely the physical strain—and this is even harder than that of ordinary representative matches, for teams challenging for the shield usually are inspired to rise above their ordinary form—but there is also the greater nervous strain of striving to retain the trophy in matches played before many more people than, on the average, watch ordinary interprovincial games. Teams which are defending the shield should be given a rest occasionally, and in the intervals of rest the second fifteen of the province which holds the trophy at the time should be given a game that would provide opportunity for further development of the players in it. There would be less financial profit in such an arrangement, but it would be better for the players and the game.

The congestion of the competition for the Itanfurly Shield also may cause the team which, on performances, has the best right to a match for the shield to be shut out of the competition in a particular season. In saying this I do not refer specifically to Wellington’s experience this year, for the Wellington Rugby Union itself is chiefly responsible for the fact that its team, which does seem to be the best provincial side in the Dominion, has not met Canterbury for the shield this season. But Wellington’s experience does indicate what could happen quite easily.

[>ODYLINE bowling, which came unnaturally into life in Test cricket, is dying a natural death. In its slow death-struggles it may throw out a tentacle or two here or there, but its demise cannot be long delayed, now that the cricket public in England, as a whole, has meted, out chilliness to it and county captains have refused it sustenance. England needed to see something of its writhings—and the writhings it caused in its victims—to understand the nature of the beast. It has seen them, though not in all the vigour induced in them by the pace of Harold Larwood’s bowling, and, in general, it has come to a realisation that Australia’s protests, however undiplomatic, had yet a good foundation. In effect, bodyline bowling has been, “sent to Coventry,” and the way is now clear for continuance of Test cricket relations between England and Australia.

The introduction of the bodyline attack into last season’s Tests has left a scar which will not disappear from the face of cricket for a long time. Indeed, it may never disappear, for the cause of the trouble may become fossilised in a new word in the English language. Some future compiler of a supplement to the “New English Dictionary,” that gigantic production of the Oxford University Press which was intended to include every word that has come into accepted usage in the language, probably will give,a place to “bodylinc.” I noticed, some monlbs ago, that at a conference of school teachers from many parts of England the word “bodyline” was used in description of something quite unconnected with the game of cricket—just as “it is not cricket” is used sometimes as a condemnatory description of something outside the sport —and similar metaphorical use of the new word has been made in other places. 'J’lie attempt made in some quarters to substitute “fast leg-theory” for “bodyline” has failed of genera] acceptance, especially as people in England have come to see for themselves the difference between “bodylinc” and “leg-theory” of any pace. One of England’s leading newspapers pointed out recently that county cricketers with knowledge of the subject unreservedly use the word “bodylinc” in discussion of the subject. And so, in time to come, our dictionaries may contain tile word, “bodyline” as the antithesis of “cricket” in the latter word’s widest sense, and the larger dictionaries will tell how the word came into use.

While bodylinc howling is languishing to its death, its arch-priest., Harold Larwood, is reduced—temporarily, at any rate—to impotence as a howler, as a result of his campaign in Australia. R is. perhaps, a little cruel to introduce a reference to Larwood’s regrettable injury, and to introduce, also, any levity with it, into a note of thanksgiving about the passing of bodylinc bowling. Yet the fault is not altogether mine, and I can shelter a little behind another’s back, for a dignified English daily paper has been digging into cricket, history and quoting, in connection with a statement about Larwood’s condition, a famous lyrical account of one Harris., a fast howler of 100 years ago. Bowling in those days was underarm. but. Harris seems to have worked up terrific pace with bis underhand methods. A description of him, from the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of 1833, runs, in part, ns follows: “R >s said that, it is utterly impossible to convey with the pen any idea of the grand effect of Harris’s bowling. His attitude when preparing to deliver tile ball was masculine, direct, and appalling. First lie stood, like a soldier at drill, upright. Then with a graceful and elegant-curve he‘raised"the fatal ball to bis forehead and. drawing back bis right foot, started off. Woe lie to Hie unlucky wight who did not know how to slop these cannonades, his fingers would be ground to dust against the bat, his bones pulverised, and his blood scattered over Hie field. Lord F. Beauelerk lias been heard to say that Ids bowling was one of the grandest sights, in the universe. . Like the Pantheon in Akenside’s hymn, it was simply and severely great.” . .

The reason for the reference to Harris in connection with Larwood’s present inability to bowl is to be found in the following further extract from this account of 1833: “Harris was terribly afflicted with the gout; it was at length difficult for him to stand; a great armchair was therefore always brought into the field, and after the delivery of the ball the hero sat down in his own calm and simple grandeur and reposed.” And on that note, I think, we may leave Hie subject of bodvline or blood-and-bones bowling. A. L. C.