counties, with any claims to be considered first-class, should meet each other at least once a season, and they should call upon their clubs not to arrange important club matches on county-match days.
The only Union match to which we have not yet referred is that of England v. the Maoris in 1888. The match was hardly a success from any point of view, except that it gave the Committee an opportunity, which they would otherwise have lacked, of putting the English team for that year into the field. The chief interest of the match lies in the proof it affords, coming as it did just after the tour of Shaw and Shrewsbury's team in New Zealand and Australia, of the firm hold which the Rugby game has gained upon the colonies.
CHAPTER III.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLAY.
We need not pause long to discuss the much-abused shoving matches of the days when twenty a side were played. They have gone never to return, regretted by none, unless perhaps by the modern half-back when he dreams of the glorious chances he would have if the forwards, and especially the wing-players, would only continue to entangle themselves as inextricably as of yore. In justice, however, to the players of that day, we may observe that they held their proper place in the evolution of the game. The modern player is not much more in advance of them than they were in advance of those who thought nothing of playing the Sixth Form against the whole of the rest of the school. We can ourselves remember taking part in games
