Rough Play: No Concern In U.K.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 17

Rough Play: No Concern In U.K.

“Rugby is a hard game: you don’t play unless you can take knocks,” the president of the English Rugby Union (Mr D. H. Harrison) said at Harewood yesterday.

He had been asked if the Home unions and British Rugby supporters were concerned at reports of rough play in some of the Lions’ matches in New Zealand. Mr Harrison, who was liaison officer with the All Blacks on their 1963-64 tour of England, arrived in Christchurch from Australia on his way to Dimedin where he will watch the first test. “NO CONCERN” When the question of rough play in the Lions’ matches was first put to him, Mr Harrison appeared surprised. Reports of the games received in England had been excellent, he said. If there had been any rough play he certainly did not know anything about it. There was no concern about it in England. However, he placed particular emphasis on Rugby being a tough game and said that it had to be accepted as such. There was no disappointment in England with the way the team had been performing. Everyone realised that the players had had to acclimatise themselves.

“I believe the team has great potential. It showed that in Australia,” Mr Harrison said.

When asked for his views on the length of international tours, Mr Harrison said that he “might be slightly” in favour of shorter tours than the

present one, which embraces 35 games in three countries— Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The present tour, however, was no longer than that which was made by the All Blacks in 1964. “In the forseeable future, with the growth of the game in Australia, a major tour to Australia could take place,”

he said, after It was suggested to him that the tour would have been a lot easier for the players if the Australian part had been omitted. Mr Harrison said that he had not come to New Zealand spedfiically to have discussions with members of the New Zealand Union, but if they wanted to discuss anything with him he was willing to do so. His main object was to watch Rugby and meet people. He plans to leave New Zealand for Fiji after the second test at Wellington. He will visit Canada and America before returning to England. “Rugby is becoming a world game,” he said. “There are 58 Rugby clubs around New York Slone.”