PROGRESS OF FRANCE.
With the match played on Saturday last at Paris, between France and Ireland, the International Rugby football season came to an end. It is a mere commonplace to say that we have never had such a season. No doubt the famous tour of the New Zealanders in this country caused the Rugby clientèle to increase sensibly, and in subsequent seasons, when an overseas team was touring these isles there was a certain amount of healthy stimulation. Still, it was not until a year ago that we were made, at last, to realise the almost universal popularity of Rugby football. In this year of grace, 1921, we have witnessed a success far exceeding that which the little band of optimists hoped for and thought we could foresee twenty years ago. Increasingly popular as club games have become it is undoubtedly the international tournament which has firmly established the game in the hearts of Britishers regardless of rank, age, and sex.
On a former occasion I have discussed in some detail the quite exceptional merits of the winning English team. It is sufficient, therefore, for me to say now that I have nothing to take back, and practically nothing to add to the remarks I made on that occasion. Undoubtedly our present side is one of the greatest sides we have ever put into the field. Give marks for every detail of play and you will find that the total marks obtained by the 1921 team will compare favourably with the total marks obtained by any team which has represented England during the last fifty years. Three members of that team in particular will live in football history – J. E. Kershaw, W. J, A. Davies, and L. G. Brown.
And yet it seems a little hard on their comrades to select these three men for distinction. Still, we know exactly what we mean when we talk of a match-winning player, and undoubtedly Kershaw, Davies, and Brown are essentially match-winners. If then we admit that our English side is a great one, what shall we say of the French side, which was only just beaten by England, and which defeated both Scotland and Ireland? Ten years ago I admit I was in a negligible minority in regard to the prospects of French football, and even my best friends were wont to tell me that I allowed my imagination to run away with me when I ventured to prophesy that in the near future France would hold her own on the Rugby field with England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.
Yet how splendidly the Frenchmen have played in 1921. Undoubtedly they disappointed us at Cardiff when they were beaten by Wales. They will do well to take to heart the lesson that defeat ought to have taught them. They were too “unfrench” for more than an hour during that game. They waited to see, and of course they waited in vain. Action, rapid and definite action, is their forte, and though in a greater field they proved to an astonished world that a capacity for sticking it out is also a French asset, the fact remains that, whether at war or at Rugby football, the French have no superiors in the art of swift attack. We English are naturally proud of our great Rugby victory in 1921, but many years hence, when the history of the game is written up to date, 1921 will, I think, be known as the year in which France was first definitely established as a Rugby football playing country.