Page:Football, the Rugby game.djvu/39

Rh passing, he has to trust to his forwards to make the game loose, and he should then aim at a team that can break away in a body with the ball at their feet—perhaps the most irresistible form of attack that has yet been devised. If neither his halves nor his forwards can be taught to make it loose, then he and his three-quarters cannot hope for anything better than a dull season's play, for it is an axiom that cannot be insisted upon too often, that fast open play constitutes real football, the tight game being strictly limited to the crises of defence.

Supposing, first, that the passing game is adopted, forwards must remember that a series of passes is hardly ever brought to a successful issue without their aid. It is true that the half-back will start the passing whilst the scrummage is still breaking up, but directly they can free themselves from the scrummage, it is their business to spread out over the ground at some distance from one another, so as to be ready to take up the passing as soon as the three-quarter gets into difficulties with his opponents.

The grand secret of good passing lies in accurate backing up—the constant passing forward, which is such a nuisance at the present day, is almost invariably the fault of the backer-up. The holder of the ball is bound to pass it into his hands, and if he is only a foot too far forward the game has to be interrupted; he must, therefore, take the greatest care not to get quite level with the runner, and before he calls for a pass he must take equal care to see that he is in a better position to make headway than the man in possession. Bad passing is entirely due to the neglect of these axioms. Men get an idea into their heads that they ought to pass at all costs, and that they have a right to call for a pass in any position. In the nature of things there must always be a more or less open course on one side or the