The Calcutta Cup
Look Sharp
By OLIVER EDWARDS
T Twickenham on Saturday England and
Scotland met at rugby. Ground and stands are full. It's blustering and dry. The rival fifteens are reviewed by the notable Anglo-Scot Mr. Macmillan. England, playing from the north, kicks off. The westering sun is neutral.
England's captain Sharp is bent on attack. No touch-kicking for him. His Cornish blood is up. But the Scots start rather better. Fisher dribbles through and from a line-out Glasgow is over for a try. Yes, one of them has the name of their biggest city. Another, their captain, Ken Scotland, is called after his own country. England retaliates by choosing names like Sharp, Phillips (a clean pair of heels), Godwin, Roberts (famous blimps from her storied past). The Scots counter by putting a Bruce in the van—in the middle of the front row, to be exact.
Coughtrie converted the try and was soon presiding at a loose scrum. He is gangling and lanky and he bestrode it like the colossus of Rhodes. Suddenly, out from between his legs came the ball, and K. Scotland, as if to con- sole it for that indignity, sent it soaring between the posts for a left-footed drop goal.
So Scotland have eight points. But the English remember that Flodden came after Bannock- burn. Jackson, •the Ulysses of the English host. as Sharp is its. Achilles, nips into the line, cork- screws ten yards through massed and shadow- grabbing Scots and kicks ahead. Referee Walters digs into a mountain of bodies and reveals the palmolithic substratum to be England's team-baby Drake-Lee with ball. Age and youth combined have made the score.
Jackson, who can make something out of nothing, is the team's sorcerer as well as its elder statesman. For this reason there was a private wrestling match between him and Glasgow, which Mr. Walters had no time to, referee because he was attending to the rugby. Jackson had parted with the ball, but with such sleight-of-hand that Glasgow thought he still had it hidden under his oxter or in his handkerchief pocket. Fullback Willcox, who converted from the touchline, was as gay as the next. man, making thirty yards under pressure with his angled left foot, or disappearing backwards, toes last, like a tumbling picador. over the west stand palisade.
So at half-time Scotland led eight points to five. It then became a great game, for the actual winning of it took perfect and manifest shape, was instinct triumphant. Sharp, receiving straight from scrum-half Clarke, feints right to Weston who continues left. Through, past the wrong-footed three-quarters, Sharp feints left to Roberts and is past again. Thinker and doer are one, Sharp is both the psychologist and the surgeon. Here is unity of being, and Glasgow. Blaikie and the other formidable men may as well be babies on the field. Like Kyle's try against the French at Ravenhill? In principle, yes. But Kyle worked more with pace variation, Sharp's longer stride with acceleratiori and a swerve Controlled by some divine -geometer. Kyle's classic was a generous extra. Sharp's try is extrinsically, strategically the greater, for it wins all : championship and Cup. As Willcox takes the match with his kick, the Scots can scarcely do more than stand sucking the dummies they have so expensively bought.
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