Declining Public Interest In Club Rugby Games

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30405, 2 April 1964, Page 15

Declining Public Interest In Club Rugby Games

IBti Out Rugby Correzpondent)

The statement of Mr C. H. McPhail at the Canterbury Rugby Union management committee meeting that “public interest in club Rugby does not mean a damn” sums up the changes that have occurred in New Zealand Rugby.

Too often in recent years lip service has been paid to club games while representative and international matches, which must detract from club Rugby, have been assiduously fostered. Mr McPhail’s comment was made after a prolonged discussion on a new form of senior competition in which the main point made by the Protagonists of the various systems was that public interest would be encouraged. He thought, and figures and facts bear him out, that the greater interest being taken

in overseas tours, both in and away from New Zealand, had taken away much of the importance of club Rugby. There is no doubt that interest in Rugby in New Zealand is as great as it ever was, but that interest now tends to centre on Ranfurly Shield matches—on the local scene or on international matches. When the Springboks tour New Zealand next year Lancaster Park will be packed by 60,000 people, and at all the provincial matches grounds will be full. But

that will not necessarily mean a greater attendance at club games. Club Rugby is recognised as the very basis of the game’ in New Zealand, but satiated, perhaps, by a diet of regular tours and full coverage of overseas tours by newspapers and television, Rugby followers are now demanding more sophistication in their sport, which eventually means watching major games rather than club games. Which is a pity. Club games often can offer more than representative matches

or even international games, and club Rugby is the cornerstone on which New Zealand’s Rugby prowess has been built. Mr McPhail is no doubt correct when he says that public interest is not necessarily the criterion by which the form of club competition should be judged.

A strong supporter of club Rugby, Mr McPhail would be the first to agree that it is the standard of play, not the form of the competition, which decides in the end the amount of public interest