SHIELD’S DOMINATING IN FLUENCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 31 July 1928, Page 3

SHIELD’S DOMINATING IN FLUENCE.

——■ —* ' EVERY OTHER CONSIDERATION (SAUItiEJURD. It ftconis that every ether consideraitioii ill Due gixxl OKI gamp! or JXugOy root ball is boaig isaorificed Mir the sake ox winning cue shimu, wiucir could very wew m tire interests of tire game be dropped iu Cook strait, as the mayor oi Mawcei-ton, iumself an old lootoaLuer, very aptly put it (says tire Diuiedm “Stair” in commenting on the fact that five, of ’the Warn a.rapa team returned Home alter the Haiifuny Shield was ,iited Xram Canterbury on July 18). Oi lei can understand tliajt one player or a touring team might be aide" to travel only part of the jeuaney to take part in the most important match, ~bub when one finds that five of the best prayers oreftum home, after that gqjne one is reluctantly driven to the eoncius.on that the winning of the game is looked upon as more important than the game itself. This .attitude iis slowly going to kill Rugby football in New Zealand. Rugby is a game for fifteen man, and the claims of individual players should not be the .paramount consideration. If Wairarapa is content to win only one game with its best team and take credit to itself as the holder of the shield of being the hast provincial team in New Zealand, then one cannot ®a.y a great deal for its sportsmanship. At Invercargi'd Mr E. McKenzie, the manager of the Wairarapa team, explained that business reasons had neeciMyitalin'd the return of Messrs Cooke, Irvine, Donald, Yoates, and Roach, five members of the team that beat Canterbury, to their home province. Such, an adw miission is tantamount to saying that ! the claims of younger p layers in the Wairarapa to inclusion in tine. "Wairarapa team have been only a secondary consideration.

To send the best liien in a. ,province •only as far as the place where the .shield its won. and then allow them 'to return home, i.s neat in accordance with the spirit of Rugby football, and is not fair to Otago and Southland.