Annualseries not favoured

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32430, 17 October 1970, Page 48

Annualseries not favoured

(From ALAN GRAHAM, N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent) MANCHESTER. New Zealand is likely to join Australia in opposing a French plan which has brought support to play the Rugby league World Cup every year.

The Kiwis could also oppose an Australian plan to reduce the value of a dropped goal from two points to one. Both proposals will come up at a meeting of the International Rugby League Board in Leeds on Tuesday week. The chairman of the New Zealand Rugby League and delegate to the board, Mr R. McGregor, said that New Zealand did not have a firm policy on either proposal and would listen keenly to argument. But it was very doubtful that the World Cup could be held annually without drastically upsetting the cycle of full tours, and that cycle was something New Zealand wanted to stabilise, not disrupt, he said. Mr McGregor said New Zealand had not experienced any particular difficulty with the drop goal, nor had there been an excess of dropped goals as there had been in Australia. But New Zealand would listen to what Australia had to say on the matter.

“We’ll also listen to what France has to say about an annual World Cup,” said Mr McGregor. “We know that Britain and France prefer short tours rather than long ones, but we always look forward very much to our full tours of Britain, and it is five years since we had one.” FULL TOURS

“We regard full tours as a much-needed chance tj bring international play to 26 of our players, not just to 19 who go on a Worfld Cup tour.”

Mr McGregor said that the future of the World Cup may depend on the financial outcome of the present series which begins with' the New Zealand versus Australia match next Wednesday. New Zealand in the past has considered the prospect of combining a World Cup with a visit to England for a full tour. But this had been rejected, partly because of the difficulty of “carrying” for the month of the World Cup the seven members of a 26-man party not chosen for the World Cup squad of 19 players. FINANCE “What we really want,” said Mr McGregor, “is a cycle of tours mingled with the World Cup with the whole cycle mapped out well in advance so that our home season can be mapped out early to fit in with that cycle. “We’re not opposed to regular World Cups, but whether we can stage them annually depends on two things

—finance, and assurance that they won’t entirely replace full tours.” Mr McGregor said that observations made by the Australian and New Zealand World Cup squads that British referees were not playing international rules on penalty kicks and substitutes would be talked over at a special pre-tournament meeting of international delegates on , Monday.