Rocky road for some

Press, 27 February 1981, Page 24

Rocky road for some

One person who has every reason to look askance at the smoothness with which Rex Dalzell was reinstated is the former Auckland and New Zealand rugby league wing, Bob McGuinn. For three years McGuinn tried without success to be allowed to play rugby union in Dunedin. He sought legal advice and even made a personal approach to the secretary of the New Zealand Rugby Union, but all to no avail.

The insurmounta' a hurdl? which barred McGuinn’s path to rugby union was the N.Z.R.U. reinstatement rule 7: - “No player who has played for New Zealand or for a New Zealand League (sic) team is to be reinstated.”

McGuinn had only three seasons in first-class rugby league, taking part in the 1970 World Cup tournament in England and making two test appearances on the triumphant tour to Britain and France in 1971. He moved from Auckland t> Dunedin the next year, when still only 23 years of age, and still lives there.

"I did a stint in rugby

league down there, but it was impossible to do any good or be of any help when only half of the players would arrive for training,” McGuinn said in Christchurch yesterday. “My brother-in-law was coaching a senior rugby union side and I was keen to get into some serious football. It was all to no avail — under rugby union laws a former Kr.i cannot even play socially,” he said. The former All Black prop, Kent Lambert, is at present trying to obtain a reinstatement for the second time since his return from a brief spell with the Penrith Rugby League Club in Sydney. He faces the dual problems of having been a rugby union international and having accepted a considerable amount of money.

McGuinn’s football career was ended by rule 7 and it seems that Lambert’s coaching aspirations will be dasfTed. It is no consolation to them to recall that such famed figures as George Nepia and Bert Cooke — both internationals at union and league — were given dispensations soon after World War IL-