Two codes of football - The view from a Kiwi
The appended article is written by a New Zealand Rugby player who has taken part in North versus South matches and represented Hawkes Bay and Manawatu in inter-provincial games in the Dominion. His comments on and comparisons between Rugby and Australian code football are interesting, but he admits that he does not understand Australian rules, and therefore it is hardly likely that he is able to recognise and appreciate system in an Australian game.
The stanch Rugbyite may be forgiven for maintaining to the last that as a scientific game calling for athletic prowess, cool and exacting judgement, reliable generalship and dauntless courage Rugby stands supreme among the many varieties of football played by various nationalities—as readily forgiven, it can be presumed, as would be the upholder of the splendid Australian game, or Soccer, or even the rough and tumble American game by the Rugbyite. All have their virtues and, by comparison, their disadvantages, and seemingly there has not yet been evolved one system of football which would suit the temperaments and peculiarities of all peoples of the many football codes played.
Rugby has more of an international character than any of the others, for it is played the world over and has been the test of international stamina and skill. Of other codes this at least cannot be said, and it is difficult to imagine the Australian game capturing the zeal and firing the enthusiasm of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, French, New Zealand, South African or even Queensland and New South Wales crowds as does one or the other systems of Rugby.
But there is one virtue common to all these football games—they call for true sportsmanship and were unquestionably designed to bring out, in players and non-players alike, that spirit of fair play and manliness so delightful to see on the playing fields or the sterner testing grounds of human endeavor and combat. The old axiom could well be altered to apply to nations, by their sports ye shall know them, for sport brings out the national trait as nothing else could, except, perhaps war.
The nations which claim championships in sport seem to be also the possesors of the highest virtues and stand highest in the estimation of the other nations. We associated brutality with German nation during the war. Is it more than a coincidence that Germany excess in no sport common to the other nations? Britishers lead in football, cricket, and tennis and are ardent lovers of superb horseflesh. Is that why they gained the world's applause for fair play and generosity to a defeated foe in the theaters of war?
If national traits are disclosed by the sport indulged in what, it may be asked, is the national trait of Victorians, South Australians and Western Australians who love this sparkling football of theirs? I would say it is the true indication of character and that the breezy, changeful, erratic, alert-minded, agile-bodied Australian could alone evolve the system of football which is so typical of national character.
I watched Saturday's game on the Adelaide Oval between Sturt and South Adelaide with extreme interest. Not understanding the game, I went to compare it with Rugby, with which I have has a very close association; and probably, had I the better knowledge of the Australian game, I would come to different conclusions. Thoroughly to understand a game one must have a practical playing knowledge of it. Therefore I, probably along with hundreds of Adelaideans who watched Saturday's game, feel quite incompetent to judge the merits of the game, on the basis of practical acquaintance. The purely theoretical footballer can never be a competent judge, whatever variety he follows, and though it may be true that the onlooker sees most of the game and can offer all sorts of advice—not always very politely—it is questionable if he would make a better showing that the player he so loudly and roundly condemns.
The game, as a game, does not strike me as the one thing calculated to stir the blood of onlookers seeing it for the first time. It has to me certain obvious defects which the Rugby game has not. In Rugby sides oppose each other as sides. The rule which forbids a player to be “off side”—that is in front of the ball—makes it inevitable that in the Rugby game attack and defence should be matters of combined effort. One can understand why the New Zealander yells himself hoarse at the charge of fifteen Rugby players down the field, and yells still louder when the oppressed side by clever team work extricates itself from a perilous position, and changes its defence into an attack on the opposing side.
In Rugby it is essentially tactics of planned whole team attack and studied defence. Individualism is subservient to team play—to combination. Even in the many dull moments when the ball is in what is termed the “scrum” team work counts for everything. Compared with this the Australian—or is it Victorian—game is a series of guerilla engagements in which one man is allowed to lurk in his opponents goal and seventeen others distribute themselves from one end of the ground to the other. Of course the Australian game lends itself to more frequent changes, to more rapid motion. It is fluctuating kaleidoscope, the very fluctuations of which may easily become monotonous—and as a matter of fact do so even though the leather-tounged barracker whose side is on top can neither see nor acknowledge the fact.
View the field of Australian football before the ball is bounced. It is lacking in orderliness; it savors of chaos. There are no sides—it appears a more friendly, a less sturdy affair than when, as in the Rugby game, the players of one team are on one side fifteen facing fifteen, not one marking one. Then from the bounce in the local game there is a strenuous struggle in the ruck for possession or advantage man to man. In Rugby the ball is kicked into the possession of the side opposing, or at least into their territory. It is a sporting commencement. We play more to our opponents in Rugby; in the local game a player in the one team plays or endevour to play to members of their own team. But in Rugby when a member of a team secures possession of the ball, a change is instituted as a team on the opposing territory and any member of the charging team beyond the ball is out of play—he is "off side", and can take no further part in the play until he gets behind the ball.
These pressing rushes when the ball is passed always more or less behind the man in possession to the others following up calls for tackling defence of a strenuous and skilful nature. The idea of the tackle is to prevent the man who has possession of the ball from passing it or otherwise getting rid of it advantageously. The skilled player will not pass until he has been "collared" and his plan is to outpace or dodge the tackler. There could be no more inspiring sight than to see speedy rucks taking down the field in a line, passing the ball one to another as they race towards the goal, outstripping the defenders, or the other hand, a gallant defence of courageous defence to stay the progress of the attackers to gain possession of the ball, and also inaugurate a similar passing rush.
The Australian rules find men who excel at kicking and marking will score goals in a twinkling. Is that inspiring to any but a follower of a team in which they deserve above all to get goals in this manner all day. Surely no? On Saturday a goal was registered within a minute of the bounce and after it has passed down the field through the hands of fewer than half of a dozen players.
As an exposition of individual play the Australian game is superb. It is brilliant and fascination and dashing, but it lacks cohesion and organized plan of attack and defence. The standard of individual excellence is remarkably high, but there is no binding link connecting each team as a whole. The elements of luck and chance is always present.
Rugby rather calls for individual plucks and combined tactics. It would take, I should imagine, more courage to tackle a running player by diving at his legs to bring him to earth than to go up to a huge mark with three or four, and it calls for more skill to avoid the tackle than to take a mark. Provided a player has ordinary football judgment and, in addition, strength, reach and spring, he can excel at marking.
The mark nevertheless is highly spectacular and intensely exciting to one who does not know the game, and in whose game it is not at all necessary, except in a minor way in a line-out—that is, when the ball is thrown into play as is done by the boundary umpire. In Rugby the ball is always thrown in by a player in the opposite side from that which caused the ball to go out of play. It is an advantage to throw the ball in, and in such a chase a high marker may use his skill to decided advantage.
At various times I have heard of the suggested combination of Rugby and Australian football to evolve a truely national and international game. It is impossible. I could not see in the match I witnessed on Saturday one common base on which the codes could be amalgamated. The two systems are as distinctly apart as the poles.
The virtue of Rugby is the clear definition of the two sides—the massed formation opposing massed formation, so to speak. The essence of Australian football is the scattered disposition of the teams and the forward play to each member of each team. These characteristics stamp the style of play and to alter either would mean the game wholly losing its identity. I would be sorry to see either game lose any of its outstanding characteristics and that would occur in any measure of unification.
Another thought passed through my mind. Would the chief personal accomplishments of Rugby or Australian player be an advantage in the other's game. I know of no skill which a Rugby player uses with benefit which would be an excellent ruse in Australian football. Good kicking is essential in both games, the Rugby “dribble”—that is the keeping of the ball at the toe of a running player who manoeuvres it past or through the leg of opponents, and keeps possession by so doing the whole length or best part of the field—may perhaps be useful on a small Australian field, but a passing rush as the Rugbyite knows it would be futile. On the other hand, the high marking of the Australian would be quite useless and unnecessary in Rugby. It would count for nothing. None of the arts and wiles of the skilled Rugby player would count in Australian football: few of the Australian attributes would be of use in Rugby.
But those beautiful kicks for goal of say J. Daly or Riley, would be the glory of Rugby crowds. Evidently place-kicking is not the forte of Australian players. It counts for much in Rugby. The three shots at goal from place kicks on Saturday were feeble attempts. The wind, someone will say, accounted for that. But it should not. Skill in place kicks or any other kicks comes in allowing for wind or any other disadvantage. If anything, Australian footballers would excel at Rugby where brilliant Rugby players would be dismal failures in the Australian game.
No. Let the Rugby players stick to Rugby and the Australian to the same. They are splendid sports and calculated to develop that fearless generous, strenuous manhood in which ‘mean’ traits are considered unworthy. A mean ‘dirty’ player in any sport is a mean, dirty player in the greater game of life. The hard knocks teach self-control, victory generosity to the vanquished, defeat the determination to come again and win. Those are the tenets of football the world over.
It is delightful to see the spirit in which Saturday's game was played, and as delightful to note the fair mindedness of the barrackers. The Adelaide football crowd is totally different from the Melbourne or Sydney football crowd, in that it cheerfully acknowledged good play on both sides. As for individual players, as a Rugbyite I particularly liked Whitehead (who would make a slashing three-quarter or a wing forward in Rugby). Scanlon an ideal half or five-eight, Moriarty and Richardson (who would delight Rugby crowds), J.W. Daly (who, if he could tackle, would shine as a full back). I could have selected a team of fifteen from the field on Saturday which, with coaching in Rugby, would lose some of the crack Sydney or New Zealand teams and win the admiration of those who love a good game of strenuous, fast, clean Rugby—which will always hold first place in my idea of football.
Footnotes
Title: Two codes of football – Australian verses Rugby
Author: The Advertiser Staff Writer
Publisher: The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA: 1889-1931)
Date: Thursday 31 May 1923
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