Kennedy realised at an early date that the one chance of the house was
to get together before the house-matches and play as a coherent team,
not as a collection of units. Combination will often make up for lack
of speed in a three-quarter line. So twice a week Dencroft's turned
out against scratch teams of varying strength.
It delighted Kennedy to watch their improvement. The first side they
played ran through them to the tune of three goals and four tries to a
try, and it took all the efforts of the Head of the house to keep a
spirit of pessimism from spreading in the ranks. Another frost of this
sort, and the sprouting keenness of the house would be nipped in the
bud. He conducted himself with much tact. Another captain might have
made the fatal error of trying to stir his team up with pungent abuse.
He realised what a mistake this would be. It did not need a great deal
of discouragement to send the house back to its old slack ways.
Another such defeat, following immediately in the footsteps of the
first, and they would begin to ask themselves what was the good of
mortifying the flesh simply to get a licking from a scratch team by
twenty-four points. Kay's, they would feel, always had got beaten, and
they always would, to the end of time. A house that has once got
thoroughly slack does not change its views of life in a moment.
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