‘League’s Lure Threat To Rugby’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31169, 20 September 1966, Page 17

‘League’s Lure Threat To Rugby’

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P A ) SYDNEY. It is no secret that many of the Wallabies soon to leave on a sixmonth tour of the British Isles, France and Canada, will not be playing Rugby Union when they return to Australia next season, Gary Machon writes in the “Australian.” Machon says: “Several intend to cash in on their football ability—and the newly-

found status to which Wallaby selection has thrust them —and switch to Rugby League. “The gauntlet will be thrown down to many of Australia’s Rugby Union clubs next season, and the code’s prestige will be at stake. “This era of commercial football makes it increasingly difficult for an amateur code such as Rugby Union to exist

“In fact if it weren't for the avid devotion of public schools to the game. Rugby Union would be hard pressed to exist at all“Football these days must have its incentives. Footballers just don’t play the game for the love of it any more.

And when a code can’t offer Wales clubs, flushed with its players money, it has to their poker-machine profits have a worth-while substitute, and caught up in the cut-

“For the last two years, Rugby Union has held its top players with the lure of this extragavant Wallaby tour. No other code can offer a tour embracing three countries in what is really a glorified, allexpenses paid trip around the world. “Rugby Union won’t be able to offer another such tour for many years. There will be title left for many of its devotees but the game itself. "And that will scarcely be enough for most of them to resist the temptation of lucrative Rugby League contracts from the big New South

throat rat race for supremacy whatever it costs. “Many of the test stalwarts and top-class interstate players of the last few years have their days numbered. The way will be open next year, more than ever, to concentrate on the code’s young footballers—and there are always plenty of these pouring into its ranks from school football. “A properly mapped-out programme ot building for the future will be the code’s only chance of battling the ravages of age and the money-clutching forces from the outside.”