Time for common sense

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32639, 22 June 1971, Page 32

Time for common sense

(By).

J. K. BROOKS)

The Lions’ two top props are out of the tour, the New Zealand coach has uttered a dire warning about the fate of men who lie on the ball in rucks, and Canterbury’s name must have a cross against it in the Lions’ black book.

Until last Saturday afternoon the British Rugby tour was developing into one of the finest sporting spectacles New Zealand has known for many years. But since the game of shame on Lancaster Park oval the stormclouds have gathered and there is the fearful prospect that all hell will break loose at Carisbrook on Saturday. For the sake of the game'lt is imperative that conimon sense should prevail before traditions established and nurtured during the greater part

of the last 100 years are dragged in the mud. Last Saturday there were occasions on which Lions’ forwards were not penalised for lying on the ball or being in the wrong side of rucks, and Canterbury forwards took the law into their own hands. The fuse should have been stamped out at the start But it was allowed to smoulder, and occasionally flare up—almost as if punching was accepted as part and parcel or the game. Now there are signs that the first test might become an extension of the Canterbury game. Mr I. M. H. Vodanovich has been quoted as saying the test might become “another Passchendaele” if the Lions persist in lying on the ball in the rucks. But two wrongs do not

make a right, especially in Rugby, and both sides must make a reappraisal of their approach in the next few days. Euphemisms such as “a good, hard game,” “it’s a man’s game,” and “after all, its a game of bodily contact,” have a hollow ring about them when applied to last Saturday’s match. If strong words are to be uttered, they should be from a leading administrator and they should refer bluntly to the conduct of the game at its highest level. And a public statement reaffirming the New Zealand Rugby Union’s full support for referees would not be out of place. There is enough national hysteria about at test match time in this country without having fuel heaped on the flames by the principals.