Those Penalties...

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28894, 14 May 1959, Page 18

Those Penalties...

'J’HE penalty goal in Rugby football has become widely condemned; there are lamentations on all sides about the increasing prominence of penalties in present day Rugby. This is partly the fault of the legislators, who have unwittingly, perhaps, done their best to confuse the issue with their subsections A, B, and C’s on the numerous laws. Thirty or 40 penalty goals a match 20 years ago would have brought a hurried revaluation of the laws of the game. But two weeks ago there was a report of 50 penalty kicks in a match at Whangarei and more recently in Christchurch in the game between Canterbury University and Lincoln College there were 41 penalty kicks.

The referees were probably only working to the laws in penalising these teams; but what a farce this sort of thing has become. Protestations from South Africa. Australia and New Zealand about the increase of penalty kicks would certainly be politely received by the four home countries, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales; but when it comes to an issue our voting powers are still not enough to give us an equal say. So it is fortunate that the situation in Britain is as bad as it is

elsewhere. The official journal of the Rugby Football Union, the “Playfair Rugby Football Annual,’’ in its latest edition has been compelled to comment on the situation. In its section on international tours it says: World-Wide “The growing prominence of the penalty goal in the modern game is world-wide. It is not only ourselves, but every thinking Rugby man everywhere who 1 laments the almost inexplicable fact that, just as the game had more or less established the try as its main objective, defensive tactics were introduced which made the dramatic run-in a comparative rarity. Worse still, it made the try of less account in winning a match than a kick at goal ordered by the referee. “It seems odd, indeed, that after more than 100 years of development by common consent, effective open play should fall so often into a state of frustration, and the kick at goal—which had been steadily pushed back into second place in favour of running and handling—become once more an unwelcome master of the general situation.” The situation is indeed odd. It seems that the game today has resolved itself into a matter of tries or goals—and goals are holding their own.