Jan 1938

RUGBY FOOTBALL, 1937.

RUGGER RETROSPECT. It must be many seasons since the School failed to win a single match, and regarded in that light it might be classified as a thoroughly unsatisfactory season. A moment's reflection, however, brings certain facts to light. First, the average age of the side was 16 years 2 months (slightly higher than the maximum age of a colts' side) '• secondly, many of our opponents produced an older team and a higher standard of play than they had been accustomed to for several years ; thirdly, the scarcity of backs with match experience necessitated considerable experimenting, experimenting which should bear considerable fruit during the next few years.

We started the season with only three colours, and, owing to injuries, on very few occasions were they all able to turn out. During the course of the term we managed to produce a pack of forwards which must rank as one of the best the School has had in recent years, and which several well-known critics considered to be one of the finest Public School packs in the North or Midlands, a pack which would have probably gladdened the hearts of those players of bygone days who bewail the lost art of forward play, a pack shoving over the ball, wheeling and clearing their line with well-controlled rushes. It would be invidious in such an eight to mention anyone as being particularly good, better to say that all were good. In the most successful packs, few players stand out above the others, and it is the forward who is least seen who is often most useful.

Behind the scrum we were not so fortunately placed.

Only Davin remained as a regular member of last year's side (and he was out of the game for a large part of the term through injury), and Cameron who had played occasionally on the wing. Eventually a back division emerged which showed that in Cameron at full-back and Milburn at scrum-half we had two players well up to the highest standards in these positions.

The main problem at the beginning of the term was to find a suitable fly-half, and several were tried before A. T. H. Wright was finally decided upon. He occupied the position with great credit, taking the ball on the move, and no reflection can be cast on him for the ineptitude of the threequarter line. This proved to be the greatest weakness of the team. Admittedly they had little or no experience (one of them had never played the game before the present season), but even so they did not appear to make the most 28