GIRLS’ RUGBY

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 November 1930, Page 4

GIRLS’ RUGBY

FIERCE ENCOUNTER IN GAME. % " ' “Bring a pair of pants!” . That cry, heard often enough in men’s football matches, was .sent out from a group of players in a. girls’ Rugby League match on the Sydney Showground recently. ) The incident was the culminating point in a fierce encounter, in which fists flew at least once. The girls tore into the fray with an almost reckless abandon, and streaming'hair was quickly lost in a seething mass of arms and legs. “Ohs” and “Oohs” among the players became more frequent- than the sound of the referee’s whistle, and ambulance men were kept busy. There were no beg pardons, and the girls dumped one another with a deftness that would have done credit to a first-rate “matman.” The match was played between teams labelled • “New South Wales” and “Metropolitan,” and was for the benefit of unemployed. It was drawn, six points each. Mrs A. H. Austin, general secretary of the Sydney Y.W.C.A., said afterwards. “I think it is quite unnecessary for girls to play a rough game like Rugby football to raise money for the unemployed. There are plenty of other things they could do without risk of damaging themselves. None of our girls is in sympathy with the idea, and I gather that the audience is made up most of men who have come for a laugh.” The treasurer of the City Girls’ Amateur Sports Association agreed that the game was too rough for girls. If they .played it properly, they might hurt one another. If they did not, they only made fools of themselves.

In France the girls had played Soccer in which there was no tackling, but even so, it had been objected to. “Rugby,” she said, “is a game when all the fighting instincts are brought into play. It is all right for men, but it doesn’t seem nice to watch girls pulling one another about, and grappling in a muddy field.”