The Gold Bat | Page 2

said Maurice, one of the forwards. "And when we did let it out, the outsides nearly always mucked it."
"Well, it wasn't the halves' fault. We always got it out to the centres."
"It wasn't the centres," put in Robinson. "They played awfully well. Trevor was ripping."
"Trevor always is," said Otway; "I should think he's about the best captain we've had here for a long time. He's certainly one of the best centres."
"Best there's been since Rivers-Jones," said Clephane.
Rivers-Jones was one of those players who mark an epoch. He had been in the team fifteen years ago, and had left Wrykyn to captain Cambridge and play three years in succession for Wales. The school regarded the standard set by him as one that did not admit of comparison. However good a Wrykyn centre three-quarter might be, the most he could hope to be considered was "the best since Rivers-Jones". "Since" Rivers-Jones, however, covered fifteen years, and to be looked on as the best centre the school could boast of during that time, meant something. For Wrykyn knew how to play football.
Since it had been decided thus that the faults in the school attack did not lie with the halves, forwards, or centres, it was more or less evident that they must be attributable to the wings. And the search for the weak spot was even further narrowed down by the general verdict that Clowes, on the left wing, had played well. With a beautiful unanimity the six occupants of the first fifteen room came to the conclusion that the man who had let the team down that day had been the man on the right--Rand-Brown, to wit, of Seymour's.
"I'll bet he doesn't stay in the first long," said Clephane, who was now in the bath, vice Otway, retired. "I suppose they had to try him, as he was the senior wing three-quarter of the second, but he's no earthly good."
"He only got into the second because he's big," was Robinson's opinion. "A man who's big and strong can always get his second colours."
"Even if he's a funk, like Rand-Brown," said Clephane. "Did any of you chaps notice the way he let Paget through that time he scored for them? He simply didn't attempt to tackle him. He could have brought him down like a shot if he'd only gone for him. Paget was running straight along the touch-line, and hadn't any room to dodge. I know Trevor was jolly sick about it. And then he let him through once before in just the same way in the first half, only Trevor got round and stopped him. He was rank."
"Missed every other pass, too," said Otway.
Clephane summed up.
"He was rank," he said again. "Trevor won't keep him in the team long."
"I wish Paget hadn't left," said Otway, referring to the wing three-quarter who, by leaving unexpectedly at the end of the Christmas term, had let Rand-Brown into the team. His loss was likely to be felt. Up till Christmas Wrykyn had done well, and Paget had been their scoring man. Rand-Brown had occupied a similar position in the second fifteen. He was big and speedy, and in second fifteen matches these qualities make up for a great deal. If a man scores one or two tries in nearly every match, people are inclined to overlook in him such failings as timidity and clumsiness. It is only when he comes to be tried in football of a higher class that he is seen through. In the second fifteen the fact that Rand-Brown was afraid to tackle his man had almost escaped notice. But the habit would not do in first fifteen circles.
"All the same," said Clephane, pursuing his subject, "if they don't play him, I don't see who they're going to get. He's the best of the second three-quarters, as far as I can see."
It was this very problem that was puzzling Trevor, as he walked off the field with Paget and Clowes, when they had got into their blazers after the match. Clowes was in the same house as Trevor--Donaldson's--and Paget was staying there, too. He had been head of Donaldson's up to Christmas.
"It strikes me," said Paget, "the school haven't got over the holidays yet. I never saw such a lot of slackers. You ought to have taken thirty points off the sort of team you had against you today."
"Have you ever known the school play well on the second day of term?" asked Clowes. "The forwards always play as if the whole thing bored them to death."
"It wasn't the forwards that mattered so much," said Trevor. "They'll shake down all right after a few matches. A little running and passing will put them right."
"Let's hope so," Paget observed, "or we might as well scratch to Ripton at once. There's a jolly