LEAGUE Paris Trial Match For Play-The-Ball Rule

Press, Volume C, Issue 29643, 13 October 1961, Page 15

LEAGUE Paris Trial Match For Play-The-Ball Rule

(New Zealand Press Association)

LONDON, Oct. 11. A British Rugby League team will meet a strong French team in Paris tomorrow night in a match specially arranged in order to try out a new method of playing -the ball after tackles. Under the method to be tried, when a player is t ckled, he must release the ball, move away from it, and regain his feet The tackler must release the tackled player, and also move away and regain his feet. Neither of the two players, nor any player involved in the tackle, can take part in play until the ball has been played by another player. The latter may play the bull with the Stand or with the foot In other words, he can pick it up and continue to run with it, or kiek it in any direction. Commenting on the try-out. the “Guardian” sports writer says the law governing "play-the-ball” has been changed several times since

World War 11, but whatever rule is operative at any given time, there has never been unanimous satisfaction between countries or even between dubs in any country. The match in Paris should, therefore, prove most interesting for the method' to be used is very similar to that used universally in Rugby Union. “In all countries, the present League ‘play-the-ball’ rale has been causing great dissatisfaction, although as yet majority opinion for an alternative method has not been obtained,” the sports writer says. “There are many who feel that the method to be tried in Paris is one which is known and understood by a very wide public in aU countries, and therefore is one which could possibly be the means of eliminating many faults arising from the present ‘play-the-ball’ rule and so lead to wider public interest in League,” he says.