THE RUGBY FIRST GRADE COMPETITION.

Evening Star, Issue 19276, 15 June 1926, Page 4

THE RUGBY FIRST GRADE COMPETITION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sif,F-I would like to again submit my scheme, which I brought up last year. Evidently the time was not quite ripe for tho change which I then advocated. However, I trust the gentlemen comprising tho Otago Rugby Football Union will give it their earnest consideration, as it is written by a sincere j well-wisher of Rugby and of tho efforts I made by tho Otago Rugby Football j Union for the betterment of the game. My scheme is to withdraw the three [lowest teams in tho A grade compotij tiun and replace them by tho three highest teams in the B grade competition, this to be done every year, the three lowest A grade teams automatically making way for the three highest B grade teams. Tho advantages arc as follows:—Firstly, it would make all tho A grade teams strive to keep in the A grade, thereby making the training operations of a team stricter, if possible; secondly, it would tend to put the standard of first grade on a more oven basis, also giving the public a higher standard of play; thirdly, it would be an incentive to the B grade teams to train their hardest and to get into the first three places of their competition. In tho case of three second grade teams at present playing-—West Taieri, Ravonsbourne, and Training College—three teams that have not got a first grade team, a man may be the makings of a Cooke, a Brownlee, or a Nicholls and get nowhere in the game unless ho deserts bis club to go into some team which has a first grade team. If my scheme was carried out it would cub out the present tendency to leave a club which has no first grade team for one which had, for by automatically getting put up to A grade it would still give tho good second grade player his chance to play first grade. Hus applies only in the case of those second grade teams which have not a first grade team. Even if a player is in a team which is in the first grade he has to wait until old players either retire or die before be gets his chance. This replacement idea is not a new one; it is carried out every year in the Soccer competitions at Homo, I believe. There is one other matter, and that is touching the competition itself. It has been tho custom for the past few years never to finish the second round owing to the provincial matches interfering. Why not reach some degree of finality by playing only the leading four teams at the end of the first round. Supposing these were University A, Kaikorai, Alhambra, and Pirates, one match only each Saturday would run the second round into six weeks, as follows .-—First Saturday, Alhambra v. Fixates; second Saturday, University v. Kaikorai; third Saturday, Alhambra v. University; fourth Saturday, Pirates v. Kaikorai; fifth Saturday, Alhambra v. Kaikorai; sixth Saturday, University v. Pirates. We would (assuming that two of the four teams were level) then have a seventh playing Saturday to play the final. The result would actually finalise more effectively the competition than tho present system of picking the draw haphazardly, and it would still leave time for the_ provincial matches to be played, which class of match could very well be made to wait until each Rugby centre had actually finished its club competition.—l am, etc., G.T.N.L, June 14.