Patron admonishes club representatives

Press, 28 November 1988, Page 20

Patron admonishes club representatives

By

JOHN COFFEY

Delegates to the annual Canterbury Rugby League senior officers conference on Saturday were admonished for not giving consideration to the welfare of the sport, beyond their own clubs’ interests. The verbal wrist-slapp-ing was delivered by the C.R.L. patron, Mr Les Huston, after some discussion on a recomm e n d ation from the Papanui club. Papanui proposed that clubs be reimbursed (at $2OO for each player) by the Canterbury board of control whenever there was a clash with provincial or South Island representative fixtures. In effect, the board would have had to pay its clubs $3400 every time a Canterbury fixture was held within three days of the domestic club competition. . Mr Denis Alsop, the Papanui delegate, said that clubs had been urged to seek players from other provinces, and that the board of control should follow the lead of its Wellington counterpart by making a contribution. After two other club delegates had supported the recommendation, Mr Huston asked if he could speak. “I think we’ve all forgotten what we are here

for. I’d like to think it was for the good of all rugby league in Canterbury and not just your individual club,” he said. “I realise you have to speak for your club and that club football is our basic strength. But we have a duty towards the code and the only way to better it is for our best players to go ahead in representative football. “We are all in this together. You are the people who put the board of control in to manage Canterbury rugby league. I would be disappointed if there is a feeling of ‘them and us.’ “Canterbury Rugby League money is the clubs’ money, but I don’t think it serves any purpose to take it out of this pocket to put in that pocket.” Mr Huston’s comments were heeded. When canvassing of club opinions resumed there was a total lack of backing for Papanui’s suggestion. Earlier in the conference there had been widespread support for the board’s revised transfer regulations, designed to severely restrict the movements of players between clubs in Canterbury. Under the new laws a club may only register five players from other clubs (no more than three

of them in its two highest grades) each season. Players can be recruited from other sources to July 15 every year. “The board did not have to be very clever to work out that transfers were out of hand last season,” said its deputy chairman, Mr Bevan Olsen. More than 200 players changed clubs in 1988, and the board processed 72 transfers at one meeting. Further consideration will be given to the transfer deadline. Many club delegates preferred to move it forward from mid-July to the start of the premiership. Similarly, there were divided views on Mr Alsop’s recommendation that transfer fees on topclass players be trebled from the listed $lOOO between premier clubs, and doubled from $2OOO if from a junior club. There was little support for Linwood’s attempt to raise fines for not fielding 17-years and 19-years sides from $BOO to $2OOO, nor Eastern’s bid to eliminate regrading for 17years and 19-years players. Sydenham gained no backing in trying to relieve the junior advisory committee of its right to appoint selectors and managers. Clubs again stated a preference for Saturday football.