Rough Rugby

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31097, 28 June 1966, Page 16

Rough Rugby

Sir, —Mr Blazey must be joking when he states that referees know they have the support of the Rugby Union in stamping out rough play. A study of penalties imposed on players ordered* bff locally

does not show any real desire to support referees or stamp out rough play. Would a referee who ordered a prominent All Black from the field be guaranteed another international appointment? Perhaps if the local referees gave a lead and demanded adequate penalties the message might penetrate to the New Zealand union in Wellington. Do the public know that, with the exception of jersey and badge, referees pay for their own gear and travelling and do not even get the chance of a privilege booking for a covered seat? This privilege is granted to clubs but not referees. Why? —Yours, etc., SUPPORT REFEREES. June 27, 1966. Sir, —With all respect to so eminent an authority as the president of the New Zealand Rugby Union, one might suggest that his’reply to a correspondent, “Hope Springs Eternal,” rather reminds one of the sort of reply evoked by complaints to other authorities about transgression of the regulations, “There’s a law about it,” as if that were the beginning and end of the matter. Whatever referees may be injstructed to do, there is little doubt that “rugged” play, with all it implies, is condoned and even acclaimed far too much for the good of the game. If the young, and some of them ridiculously young, are being brought up in such traditions, it is a sorry outlook for the future of a grand game that, played in the proner snirit, has few equals in the field of athletic rivalry. —Yours etc., ILAM. June 27, 1966. [This correspondence is now closed. —Ed., “The Press.”]