The main essential rule of the game, which determines its character, is that no one must kick or throw the ball forward to one of his own side, or the latter is guilty of 'off-side play.' When we add that striking the ball with the hand or arm is not allowed, the reader has before him the skeleton outline of the Rugby Union game.

We have seen that, as far as experience has shown at present, the most successful tactics have proved to be the playing of eight or nine men of the fifteen who form the side as ' forwards '; two as 'half-backs,' who stand close to the 'scrummage,' which is formed whenever the ball is fairly held and put down upon the ground; three or four behind these, who are styled 'three-quarter backs,' and whose aim is to keep clear and away from the mass of struggling forwards, and one ' back,'who does not guard the goal alone, like the 'goal-keeper' in the Association game, but has to defend the whole goal-line of his side. As it would be tedious and unfruitful to discuss the minor rules of the game, which can speak clearly enough for themselves, it remains for us to offer some criticisms and detail some reminiscences of the brave old game, and those who have played it. And first as to the forwards.

With football, as well as with other games of skill, it is a much easier task for a man to criticise the play of individual members of a team than it would be for him to make up the team himself. Nothing is more common than to hear an unfriendly or perhaps a disappointed player say that he cannot imagine how So-and-so ever 'got his colours,' or was put into the international team; and this kind of criticism is especially applied to forwards, for a good deal of their best work is done where its merit can hardly be recognised by any but a careful and intelligent captain. Scrummages are still one of the main features of the game, for even if the play is exceptionally fast and loose, as a rule there is bound to be a scrummage when the ball is thrown in from touch; and a captain who chooses all the fast and brilliant players he can pick out, will find his side nowhere if he has nobody to 'hold the scrummage.' Time after time we have seen all the efforts of a brilliant team of back players rendered quite useless because their forwards were unable to keep their opponents from breaking down the scrummage.

One example is within the writer's recollection of a team which won a whole season's matches by carrying the scrummage. A certain college at Oxford for four seasons was undefeated by any other college; for the first two years of this success it had a good back as well as forward team. For the last two of these seasons the team was almost without competent backs at all, most of the back players being forwards converted into backs by necessity; yet the team could still win its matches, no other college team being able to 'hold the scrummage' against it. The critic, then, has always to recollect that the first and essential requisite to a forward team is that it should be able to 'hold,' if not always to 'carry the scrummage.' In the bygone shoving days a scrummage often did not break up at all of itself; the ball was heeled out or oozed out, and the forwards continued to shove until they heard a shout that the 'ball was away.' Nowadays a ball seldom comes out except when the scrummage is carried by one team, either by shoving clean through its opponents or by cleverly 'screwing' the scrummage and taking the ball out.

There is, therefore, a good deal of skill to be shown in the way of scrummaging alone, and it is imperatively necessary, as long as football remains as it is, that a certain number of the forwards should be chosen for their scrummaging powers. The modern forwards, then, should be the possessors of three distinct qualities, of scrummaging, passing, and dribbling, but if these rarissima aves should not be procurable, the team of nine forwards as a whole should display all these qualities amongst their number, and we are not at all certain that a certain football critic said badly when he advised captains to choose three hard shovers, three good dribblers, and three clever passers for his forward team at the beginning of the season, and let them learn each other's game, and the result would be the combination required. No doubt the advice cannot be taken literally, but there is a good deal of truth in the seeming paradox.

The first thing, then, that the forwards must learn is the art of scrummaging. The man who from laziness or want of training puts his head into the pack and simply shoves straight forward, if he imagines himself to be scrummaging, is as great a self-deceiver as the ostrich who puts his head into the bush and imagines himself invisible. Many things go to make the real scrummager; first, he must always be ready to push into the fray at once; much is gained by being in position to shove as soon as the bail is put down, and the side which gets two or three men packed first with their heads underneath has, if the said three men know how to 'work' the ball and keep it with them when the scrummage gives or twists, half won the scrummage for that time already. Then those who are on the ball must gently 'work' it with their feet, so as to take it with them whenever the scrummage shows signs of screwing, or yields in any quarter, and if perchance the yielding is on their own side, even then by clever manipulation they may let the stream rush past them without taking the ball with it.

We have often seen a scrummage scatter past one of the Gurdons or Thomson of Halifax, and lo, when it had gone by there was the old stager speeding away from them with the ball still in front of him.

These, however, are rare examples, and there is still plenty of unscientific scrummaging to be seen; men who are not on the ball keep their place in the hope of a sudden turn of the scrummage giving them a brilliant opportunity, and many are the lazy players who, having come through the scrummage without the ball, betake their way to the back of the scrummage again with considerable leisure. But there is many a good scrummager who packs quickly, shoves the instant the ball is down, and can steadily keep with the ball and never lose touch of it as the scrummage sways, and to those who play the right game there is plenty of skill as well as force in scrummaging.

'A loose scrummage.'.

The heroes of these melees often make little reputation with the public, and those alone who have played with them or against them know their merits. But some of these gentry there must be in any conquering team.