"UNREASONABLE!"

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1919, Page 7

"UNREASONABLE!"

ENGLISn PAPER'S CRITICISM

"OUR BRETHREN OF THE ANTIPODES CANNOT REALISE."

The criticism by an English journal of,the New Zealand Rugby _Union, which) was referred to in The Post last week, has caused the Sydney Referee to make the following interesting- comment:'—.'

"It is difficult to pick up an English! newspaper these days without running art eye over some expression of opinion jarring to Australian sportsmen, and baseless at that. Underlying these, things is tha assumption that all that emanates from, the Mother Land in sport is the right and only thing. In some of the sporting papers there is never a suggestion that an effort has been made to see into tho minds of Australian or New Zealand sportsmen.. Conclusions are jumped at and ridiculous assertions made. These would, not matter greatly, since thoso who control sport in. its many ramifications in the Mother Land and the Austral countries are, for tho greater part, men who recognise tho prowess and the sportsmanship of ono another, though they may not see eye to eye in many things, owing to a different outlook, the outgrowth of environment and climate. I

"This leads us to the fact that in a recent issue the Athletic News went beyond reasonable criticism in discussing a recent meeting of tho New Zealand Rugby Union at which some changes hi the laws of its game were proposed. Among other, things tho Manchester paper said: "The position can bo reviewed thus: The New Zealanders —or a majority of these delegates i:o tho union—desiro to provide an entertainment which will make money; in this country, the demand is for the maintenance of a recreation for players. The spectators and tho toll are secondary considerations. Our brethren and cousins at the Antipodes cannot realise this essential difference."

"The brethren in the Antipodes realise the difference just as acutely as anyone in England. By hanging on to tho skirts of the Old Land in football, the Rugby Union forces in the Antipodes have made the task of the Northern Unionists much easier than it would have been had they fought hard and skilfully to preserve their gamo as one for the nation and the people, as differentiated from a restricted class. The war showed men what the backbone of tho nation was and is.

"If New Zealand keeps the control of tho game in amateur hands and the control ot the clubs and grounds in the same hands she" has nothing to fear from professionalism, even of tho Rugby League brand. In Sydney practically everyone realises that tho League is the finer Rugby game, no matter how faddists might try to delude themselves that it isn't.

"Footballers across the Tasman owe nothing to England, or Ireland, or Scot-, land. They aro under no obligation whatever to the English Rugby Union, whoso attitude toward New Zealand Rugger has been quite wanting in sympathy. This is shown in more ways than one, not forgetting the passing over of New Zealand when the invitation to the second Springbok team to visit England was despatched a few years ago. That was an insult. The All Blacks redeemed English Rugby, and for this they have been criticised most recklessly. Twelve long years and the work in the wa rhave not softened some of the critics. Even David' Gallagher, a New Zealand soldier in a British war before he became an All Black, had to fall on a battlefield in. France before some men could write a good word of him. And Gallagher, captain of the All Blacks was a man in every, sense of the word.