Page:Football, the Rugby game.djvu/17

Rh the principle of selection in the South being to take as many men as possible from the best team of the year whenever any team, such as Richmond, Blackheath, Oxford, or Somerset County, has been able, as they repeatedly have been, to claim that title.

In the North, on the other hand, where so many teams have undeniable claims to be represented, the selecting committee have generally found themselves unable to resist the pressure brought to bear upon them, with the result that the teams they put into the field are, as compared with the Southern, essentially scratch ones, however good the individual members of them may happen to be. The double victory gained by the North in 1888-89 only tends to prove the truth of the theory advanced, because in that year Yorkshire County had proved themselves to be so far superior to all their competitors, that they were fairly able to supply a large majority of the North team; and in the same year, by a curious coincidence, the usually strong teams of the South were exceptionally weak, and the Old Leysians had not then proved their strength.

As the North and South match has always been strictly regarded as a trial match for the English team, no one who is not qualified to play for England is allowed to take part in it. Many men are qualified to play for either the North or the South by birth and residence; in such cases, in order to ensure all the best men of the year taking part in the match, the only principle that has hitherto been observed is that birth gives a prior claim. This accounts for the apparent anomaly that some men have played on one side in one year and on the other the next.

Trial matches such as the North v. South, which have a genuine interest of their own, are admirable institutions; but trial matches per se are an abomination; for many years