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Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 190, 11 August 1921, Page 9

(To tlie Editor.) Sir, —As an active participator in Rugby football for over twenty years, and a follower of the game for double thai period of time, I cannot think that tha Auckland Rugby Union officials seriously contemplate holding the Auckland v. Springboks match on the Bden Park ground and not on the Domain. Should they do so they would break every canon that the great game layß itself out to teach, viz., "playing the game for the love of the game as a sport, apart from the question of spondulicks." Unselfishness, chivalry, good fellowship, and loyalty are the traditional foundations of Rugby. Should they decide on the Eden Park venue the stink of money would prevail and drown all the pleasure from the game—the smallest boy on the ground would realise that thousands and thousands had been deprived of seeing the game because the question of the entrance fee was first, foremost, and last in the minds of the committee. The selfishness and disloyalty would be appalling when it has to be remembered that the lack of accommodation and higher entrance fees will hit the schoolboys hardest-—the very people we are looking to to uphold the traditions and honour of the great garde in the future, the people we are not ashamed to ask to parade the streets as an Advertisement, to walk miles and miles before playing in what to them iB a life and death game. Willingly do the little sportsmen carry out their part of the bargain, only to be shut out from (seeing a game they would go through any torture to be present at. It brings the tears very near the surface, and Certainly a very bitter feeling to one's heart, when one realises that gome little chap is likely to be deprived of the pleasure of talking for years how he rescued the ball "Morkel had kicked a thousand yards into the road," and thig for the sake of a shilling.

Would not it be more in keeping with the spirit of the game—would not all the "old has beens and never wages" bo puffed up with pride to hear that "tho committee has decided that a portion of the ground will be free to school boya. All season ticket holders and officials will be charged the game as the general public." Apart from the school boya, thousands and thousands of ladies and working men able to attend the Domain would bo debarred from Eden Park. These would be the people who could not afford to stand hours and hours before the gates Open. And all this not through necessity, as It is a moral certainty that the game will be a financial success wherever it is played.— I am, etc., H.P.R.