COMMENT IN ADVANCE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 78, 29 September 1924, Page 5

COMMENT IN ADVANCE

THE BUGBEAR OF PROFESSIONALISM. (raoji our. own corkespondent.) LONDON, 27th August. "Truth" considers the programme of the New Zealand Rugby team to ba interesting, though the players will uot nave much fun at Christmas or the New Year. Having come so far, the writer thinks they might have had a little holiday, "but our Rugby Union authorities are very evangelical in their views. Indeed, they arc almost Cromwellian Puritans in their stern determination to take the game seriously and to prevent, the least suspicion of anyone having a good time on tour. That sort of tiling savours of gate-money professionalism. If _ I were a very young man I should think twice before taking a tour under the_ auspices of the English or Scottish Unions. It would be a very dull- affair. I should feel I had to keep fit to make gate-money for my masters; I should be a sort of amateur slave. However, things may not be as bad as all that. At all events, one hopes that the New Zealanders will have better luck than the English team has had in South Africa. They have had a larger percentage of injuries than could reasonably have been expected. This is bad enough, and the local Press intimates that they are having too good a time to j do themselves justice. How horrible! How., naughty!" |

One of the matches, it is remarked by the same writer, will give some of the Scots a chance of playing if the Scottish Rugby Football Union permits. For the disgruntled Scots are not meeting the visitors, .who will not cross tho Tweed. "Of course, the Scottish Rugby Football Union may declare any Scot a professional who plays with or against anybody who plays against the New Zealanders. That is one of the excitements of Rugby football. You never know when you may not be declared a professional for having done something you never knew you ought not to have done. And just as the English Rugby Union has not hesitated to suspend innocent Australians, even so the Scottish Rugby Union would not flinch from declaring the New Zealanders - professionals if they had a penny more pocket money than tho liaioo Lhuusht "they spiki is isssiauL--'"