• COLONIAL ATHLETES.
IT is greatly to be hoped that when the South African footballers return to their own country their memory Of their English Visit will not be dominated by the reception which they have suffered at the bands of the clerk of the weather. The November on which they Chanced has made several records,' all in the way of. eicessive rainfall, and December 8th, when' They played what ought to have been in 'certain senses the biggest match of their tour, was one 'of the very wettest days, ho long as the match was hi progress, on which it could be possible to play Rugby -Union -football in this country. It was just possible to'play, because, although it rained so hard during the match, the' rain commenced in earnest only some thirty minutes before the kick-off.- The ground on which if fell was not waterlogged, and at no time did the arena of play present a 'really sodden aspect; but it was, on the other hand; exceedingly greasy and slippery,—a condition to which a fairly sharp frost on the previous night combined with- the rain'to 'reduce it. We -said •just above, and said pur- posely, that Rugby football can 'rarely be played on so Wet a day in • this country. Many people are inolined to suppose that the South 'African's 'never play in wet weather at home; and, in consequence, that they are at, a greater relative disadvantage than our own men when they have to play in the , wet here. The actual fact is rather the contrary. Most of the South African grounds are not turf grounds at all : they are grit grounds, with a very hard surface. The consequence is that it is only after very long continued rain that they can become sodden. The water has a tendency to lie on them rather than to soak in; it disappears more quickly than it would here on account of the greater evaporation; and sometimes their football matches are played on a soil covered in places with standing water, which yet does not make football impossible, because the ground beneath it is hard and firm. But if the South Africans thus have quite as much experience as our own men in playing on a wet ground and with a wet ball, what they do not have very much experi- ence of is greasy ground; and this is a condition which they have had to meet very often during their visit here, more especially in the great match of December 8th.
In the circumstances it was quite impossible that this should he other than a game in which forward play counted for nearly everything. The backs never had a chance of getting away; the ball must have been as bad to hold as an eel's tail, and as a matter of fact the attempts at catching it were just about as successful as if it had been a flying eel. In this respect, it has to be confessed, the Colonial team made a better show than our own men. A point which was very noticeable and significant, as showing one of the advantages of constant play together, was that the slippery ball was often bungled by the English backs through two men trying to catch it at the same time, or sometimes by the man who was obviously the wrong man trying it instead of the man who was as obviously the right one. A far better mutual understanding was evidently prevalent among the South Africans, no doubt because they had been playing together so long. The match, in spite of all the drawbacks of the wretched weather, was a very fine one indeed. In the first half the Colonials had the advantage of the wind, which was blowing nearly straight down the ground; and although this was an advantage that was minimised by the condition both of the ground and of the ball, which was so bard both to hold and to kick, still it appeared to tell. All through the first half the English line was menaced con- stantly, while the goal line of the South Africans was hardly approached. Again and again it seemed inevitable that a point must be scored against England, but again and again the situation was just saved. At length, almost on the point of half-time, a try was scored—rather luckily—out of a loose scrimmage. But though the actual try, as scored, was a lucky one, the visitors fully deserved a try in that first half. The kick at goal was a fairly good one, but it was a difficult chance, with a sodden ball, and the ball never looked quite like going between the posts. It was singular that England's try, gained after about a quarter of an hour's play in the second half-time, was almost exactly at the same point of the line, and the kick, with a still more sodden ball by that time, went again to the right of the posts,—somewhat wider, it has to be confessed, than before. Seeing that these two tries were all that was done in the way of scoring, the conclusion naturally was a draw. Perhaps that is the decision which was the most fair to all parties ; at all events, England can hardly think that she was not given at- least equal justice. Once or twice towards the end she looked like scoring again, and the danger was just averted, but scarcely as often as the South Africans had looked like making a score in the first half-time. But ever since the score was equalised, South Africa was playing with a man short, Mr. Morkel being so badly hurt that he had to be carried from the field. In a game of loose scrimmages such as this it is difficult to pick out individuals for praise. The English forwards quite held their own in them, and perhaps a little more than their own. But the South African backs were sharper on the ball, and, so far as the ground gave opportunity, sharper away with it. Had the ground been dry, their superiority would have been more marked still; and we have to remember that the visitors had two of their best men out of the fighting line behind the scrimmage, besides Morkel injured in this particular match. The conclusion, therefore, to which we are compelled is that had the ground been dry, or had the South African team been at its full strength, they would have beaten our fifteen almost as they chose. And if for "or" in the above sentence we substitute and "—had they been at their strongest and the ground also been dry—their superiority would, of course, have been more ebvious It is, , to be sure, disagreeable, speaking from the English point of view, to be driven to make such a confession as this. We may do our best to comfort ourselves with Imperial reflections (to the effect that these, our conquerors, are only Greater Britons after all; but the comfort which we can derive from such a consideration is . rather meagre,. and leaves us cold. Patriotism, we are conscious, begins at home, although it does not of necessity stay there. We are obliged to regret a conclusion which implies on the whole that from the athletic point of view the native of Great Britain is inferior, generally speaking, to the natives of British Colonies. That is really what it comes to. It is the con- clusion which is borne home to us when we regard the success of these South Africans in the football field; it is the lesson which was taught us by the "All Black" New Zealanders in the same arena ; we find it forced upon us again when we read the accounts of the victories of the " Rhodes " Scholars— quite wonderful in proportion to their actual numbers as compared with the other undergraduates—in the athletic sports at our two chief Universities ; reluctantly we receive it yet again in an object-lesson when we sit in the pavilion at "Lord's" watching a match between All England and Australia. What makes the lesson the more striking and the less agreeable is the fact that the conquering " fifteens " or " elevens " which visit us are selected out of so much smaller a population than our own teams which are picked to oppose them. But, although it is such an unpalatable lesson, we cannot think that it is at all a surprising one. The chief surprise about it is that so many in England should consider it just matter for surprise. The number of the population in the Colonies from which the teams of footballers or cricketers which come to visit us are drawn is not nearly so large, it is true, as the number from which our teams are chosen ; but surely, if we consider the difference in the nature of the conditions in which the one and the other population respectively live, it ought to cause us no surprise whatever that for all athletic purposes the Colonies should be able to provide a better class of men. There are, of course, big towns in the Colonies. But the average life in the Colonies is not the life of towns ; it is the life of the country in its freest and most actively laborious sense,—of the farmer, the rancher, the pioneer, and so forth. Whether or no these athletes them- selves who come to visit us are of the open-air professions, at least it is probable that they have in their veins the blood of ancestors who have lived for several generations the simple, and, at the same time, the strenuous, open-air life. The scientific thought of the day requires of us much faith in the value of heredity, and the performance of these Colonial visitors, no doubt, bears witness to its value. This is not all, however, of the greater relative advantage given to the athlete by the conditions of a Colonial life. Our English climate is not always quite so humid as the South African team of foot- ball players have been unfortunate enough to find it; but it always is apt to err on the damp, on the rheumatic, side. It is hardly to be doubted that residence, even for a short time only, in the drier climates gives an appreciable addition to the athletic activities of a native of these islands. Our golfers who have visited America are quite unanimous in asserting that they can drive a longer ball in that country than at home. The majority of our soldiers, who did not suffer from severe wounds or fever in the South African War, returned with greatly improved health and activity as the result of their sojourn in its mkt- tively dry climate. If we watch an Australian eleven in the field, we see all its members "throwing in like a horse kicking," as the phrase goes ; whereas, of an English eleven, almost every man over five-and-twenty years of age has "thrown his arm away" long ago, and can only send in the ball with a feeble underhand jerk. It is more than probable that a suspicion of rheumatism in the joints, perhaps not. yet pain- fully apparent, is the reason for the relative futility of 'the Englishman. The futility of excuses to explain away his inferiority is not relative; it is absolute. These comments are not offered by any means by way of an excuse. We have to believe that the superiority of the South Africans in the football field is a superiority which no excuses can explain liway. We believe, however, that the reasons of the superiority are not so difficult to understand as is often supposed; it requires no more elaborate systems of tactics or anything of that kind for its explanation. It is a distinct athletic superiority, and, considering the relative conditions of home and Colonial life, it would be very surprising if each a superiority did not exist.
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