been unbeaten in their Australian tour, yet they won only two out of five matches in New Zealand. The captain of Great Britain, David Bedell-Sivright, said after the Test that he could not see New Zealand winning the big matches on their Northern Hemisphere tour, but "I think you will probably win most of the county matches." The New Zealand selectors named a squad of 53 players from which the touring team would be selected in late 1904. The following year, on 25 February, a list of 16 "certainties" for the tour was named (one of whom would eventually not tour due to injury). A final opportunity for selection was the North-South inter-island match on 3 June 1905 after which, 25 players were selected for the team, and an additional two were added prior to the team's departure to Britain. Before the Northern Hemisphere tour, 18 of the squad conducted a preliminary three-match tour of Australia where they won two matches and drew the other. They also played four pre-tour matches in New Zealand, winning two, drawing one, and losing their final match 3–0 to Wellington. The team departed for England aboard the Rimutaka on 30 July. There were two ports of call on the journey – Montevideo, and Tenerife – before their arrival in Plymouth, England. The day after their arrival on 8 September, the squad travelled to Newton Abbot, which served as the team's training base throughout much of the tour. Early matches Their first match took place on 16 September 1905 against Devon, who had been runners-up in the most recent English county championship, and for whom played ten members of Devonport Albion, the top club in England. Because of this, Devon went into the match as favourites, however the crowd of 6,000 at the match were soon stunned by the New Zealanders as they scored 12 tries and eventually won 55–4. Billy Wallace scored 28 points, including three tries, and it would be another 51 years before another All Black would score more points in one match. The score caused a sensation in Britain, and some newspapers even incorrectly reported the score as Devon 55, New Zealand 4. Eventually the reports were corrected, and the New Zealanders returned to Newton Abbot to be greeted by a brass band and cheering crowd. Five days later New Zealand faced Cornwall at Recreation Ground in Camborne. Although the score