Rugby
Huw Richards 7y

An unmitigated shambles: 1908 Lions Tour of New Zealand

The 1908 tour of New Zealand is something of an anomaly. The squad was -- even by the standards of early tours, unrepresentative -- described, correctly, at the time as an Anglo-Welsh team. It played in red shirts with white hoops and attempted to counter the haka with a 'war cry' consisting of the words 'Rule Britannia, Cymru am Byth [both repeated three times] hip, hip, hurrah [also repeated three times]'. And it fell some way short of the full strength of those two countries, with only 11 capped players among the 28 who travelled. 

But the Lions accept it on their official website, which is rather to their credit when it could so easily be renounced. It represents an early example of one of the Lions' less proud occasional traditions -- the unmitigated shambles. Its purpose was to demonstrate the virtues of amateurism, to persuade New Zealand of the folly and illegality of the seven-man scrum formation and to bolster the game there against the impending threat of rugby league.

It can be argued that it succeeded in the last. All Black captain Billy Stead was to recall that 'The Anglo-Welsh side came out just at the right time. There was a slump in big football and the game was in a sort of dormant state'. It was, though, considerably less successful with the other two.

Twenty of the 28 players were public-school educated -- as historian Geoff Vincent has pointed out, much closer to the usual profile of an England than a Wales or Lions squad. There were six, among them the captain Arthur Harding -- a survivor of the 1904 team -- from Christ's College, Brecon. Among the Brecon boys were the Jones brothers, who were an invariable source of confusion in the days when players were often known by initials. Jack, a centre and James, who would spend much of the tour at outside-half, shared the initials J.P. James was one of four Guy's Hospital students including Pat McEvedy, the other holdover from 1904.

They made a point of not training on the long boat trip out. This may not have been wise. New Zealand rugby was not, as Stead suggested, quite what it had been in 1905, but plenty of that team remained and there was also fresh talent. Stead thought that New Zealand's selectors erred in not introducing more newcomers. 

Unsurprisingly the touring team struggled from the start. In four matches before the first test they lost to Wellington and Otago, showing further attachment to the conventions of amateurism when they declined the Wellington captain Fred Roberts' invitation to bring on a replacement -- as was the practice in New Zealand -- when fullback John Jackett was injured.

Jackett, a Cornishman who had impressed the 1905 All Blacks when he played against them for England, was fit to play in the first test match at Dunedin. The All Blacks included nine survivors of the 1905 team, including the inside-back combination of Stead, Roberts and Jimmy Hunter who had wrought such havoc on British opponents. The three new caps included dynamic Wellington forward Arthur 'Ranji' Wilson.

The outcome was a thrashing. Rod Chester and Neville McMillan recorded in their test-by-test All Black history 'Men in Black' that this was 'largely because of the complete domination by the home forwards. Casey and Hughes hooked almost at will from the set scrums and the visitors were outclassed in the line-outs as well. Their speedy backs spent most of their time on defence and only Jackett's brilliance prevented a higher score by New Zealand'.

Thirty-two points to five, with seven tries including two each by Roberts and Otago centre Frank Mitchison, was high enough as it was. Nor can it be any surprise that the Lions pack struggled. Five of them, all English, were uncapped in spite of this being a low-point in England's history -- with only three wins out of 18 in the last six championships -- making their selectors even more prone than usual to scatter caps around.

One saving grace had been the Leicester forward Fred Jackson, who had also converted their try, touched down by Cardiff wing Reggie Gibbs from a spectacular swerving run by English centre Henry Vassall. Jackson's form on the tour, added to his contribution to Cornwall's County Championship victory this season, should have assured him of England recognition in 1909.

Jackson, though, was not all he seemed. On the other side of the world, Moseley's delegate to the Rugby Football Union's annual general meeting alleged that he was a former rugby league player, and produced a statement from Swinton that he had played for them some years earlier under the name of John Jones. There were also suggestions that he was neither Jackson, nor Jones, or a Cornishman, but a Welshman named Ivor Gabe.

An RFU sub-committee set up to investigate the case ruled on a motion proposed by James Baxter, who will be encountered again in 1930, that Jackson should be suspended until he could disprove the allegations against him. A telegram was dispatched to the tour management: "Jackson suspended. Return him forthwith."

Jackson was seen off at Wellington harbour by a large crowd including his sorrowing team-mates. Their claims to be exemplars of simon-pure amateurism in tatters, the touring team sacrificed another principle in the second Test by playing Gibbs as a 'rover', the auxiliary half-back reckoned illegal by most British opinion.

As with Wales' similar expedient in 1905, it seems to have done no harm. The Lions had also reshuffled their pack while the All Blacks selectors may, for once in their long history, have taken mercy on an opponent since they made eight changes. And the match was played in foul, rainswept swampy conditions in which, one report said 'players were unrecognisable long before half-time'.

The touring team's pack dominated and they were, Chester and McMillan report "very unlucky not to score an upset win". After a scoreless first half, the All Blacks took the lead with a penalty from Bolla Francis, which was cancelled out -- under the scoring values of the day -- by a try from centre Jack Jones. It ended 3-3 with the tourists on top, and was the last international appearance by legendary All Black wing/fullback Billy Wallace.

The final test in Auckland, following on from defeats by Taranaki and Auckland, saw a return to the status quo ante. The All Blacks strengthened their team, who scored nine tries and left the tourists grateful for the poor goal-kicking which saw only one converted, for a final score of 29-0. Mitchinson crossed three times, and his five scores in a single series remain a record against the Lions, equalled only by Theunis Briers of South Africa, in one more match, in 1955. But the most memorable was scored by a recalled centre Robert Deans -- remembered for the 'try' controversially disallowed against Wales in 1905. Deans died less than two months later following an operation for appendicitis.

Nor was this the team's final embarrassment. As they set off for the considerably less demanding Australia leg of the tour -- with no tests scheduled -- Bristol forward Percy Down, leaning too far out of the ship to say his farewells, fell out and had to be rescued by two farewelling All Blacks, Bolla Francis and George Gillett.

But at least Down was on the boat. It was missed by Vassall, reportedly 'visiting lady friends'. This vignette may shed light on why a player who won rave reviews in New Zealand, and was picked by veteran critic EHD Sewell for his all-time XV from players he had seen between 1900 and 1939, won only one England cap and showed 'no further interest in the game' after returning from the tour.

Welsh wing Johnny Williams fell in the First World War, but others were to have careers which extended beyond it. The West Indian-descended 'Ranji' Wilson was a star of the New Zealand Forces team which won the 1919 King's Cup, a World Cup in embryo, then went into history as the first victim of New Zealand rugby's long and shameful genuflection to racism when he was excluded from the team which visited South Africa on the way home.

Ned Hughes -- the front rower who hooked so devastatingly in the first Test -- turned to rugby league and was capped for the Kiwis in 1910, but was reinstated to union after service in the first world war and played in the first All Blacks-Springboks series in 1921, becoming at 40 the oldest All Black. The same year saw Jack Jones win the last of his 14 Welsh caps, spread across 13 years and eight seasons.

Three of the touring team ended their lives in New Zealand. This was perhaps not surprising in the case of Pat McEvedy, since he was a New Zealander, and became president of the New Zealand Rugby Union in 1934-35.

Skipper Harding clearly had mixed feelings about New Zealand rugby -- he complained after the tour that his team were 'astonished by the latitude' allowed to the rover and claimed that most New Zealand rugby people wanted the position curbed, but looked to England for a lead. But, after two visits, he clearly liked the country. In 1910 he emigrated there, working initially as a farm manager and later for seven years as the stationmaster at Greymouth on the South Island. His cap from the tour is among the holdings of the New Zealand Rugby Museum at Palmerston North.

And then there was the mysterious Jackson. Rather than return to Britain, he cashed in his return ticket in Sydney and went back to New Zealand, where he settled happily and fathered a sizeable family. One of his sons, Everard Jackson, became an All Black, playing in six tests late in the 1930s.

As to his real identity, veteran league writer Tom Mather's exhaustive research led him to the conclusion that he was Ivor Gape, more usually known as Gabe, a relative of Rhys Gabe, the great Welsh centre of the time. But, scrupulous to a fault, Mather also reports that some surviving relatives are far from convinced that this was so.

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