RUGBY LEAGUE Player Suspended: English Team Not Happy In Brisbane

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 July 1950, Page 3

RUGBY LEAGUE Player Suspended: English Team Not Happy In Brisbane

SYDNEY, This Day (Rec. 1 p.m.). —Correspondents travelling with the English Rugby League team state that, following the suspension of the half-back Bradshaw, members of the English team are anxious to leave Queensland and return to Sydney. Bradshaw was suspended for two matches and the forward K. Gee was cautioned concerning incidents during the second test match at Brisbane last Saturday. . Bradshaw is the first English player on a tour of Australia to be suspended after having been sent off the field.

Several Australian players were suspended in England nearly 40 years ago. Bradshaw will miss the matches against Toowoomba today and Brisbane on Thursday, but will be eligible to play against Ipswich on Saturday. The English vice-captain, J. Egan, said: “Public feeling here in Queensland against the Englishmen is the worst I have experienced in my long football career. Nobody in Brisbane wants us. It is killing us. We can’t get our matches here over quickly enough to get back to Sydney.” The Sydney Daily Telegraph sports writer, George Crawford, says: “The nerves of the English players are definitely on e(fo;e. People jibe at them in the streets and turn their backs on them. The players cannot understand this animosity. Since the war .Brisbane football fans have become the most biassed in Australian sport.”

OFFICIALS BLAMED FOR INCIDENTS IN TEST GAMES LONDON, July 3.—The Manchester Guardian in a leading article today laid the blame on Rugby League governing bodies for the friction between Australian and English players at the recent Brisbane match. It said: “The real trouble is that there are different interpretations of certain basic rules in each country, and players trained to one do not understand, and resent, another. . ~ “This Rugby League problem is old as tests, yet officials of the governing bodies in Australia, England, and NewZealand have never really faced it. Now the matter is becoming a public nuisance and if officials continue hiding their heads in the sand they are likely to do a great game irreparable harm and cause ill-feeling between many citizens of the Commonwealth. “If we cannot have international football without such episodes then it would be better to have none.”

Change In West Coast Representative Team

As F. Mulcare (Ngahere) .is unavailable for the West Coast team to travel to Christchurch this week-end, the selector, Mr J. Dodds, has appointed P. Mulcare (also of Ngahere) to take his place. The team will leave for Christchurch on Friday evening and will return on Saturday night, by special rail-car.