UNGRATEFUL PLAYERS

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 19 November 1932, Page 8

UNGRATEFUL PLAYERS

RUGBY BOARD UNHEEDED NEW LAW COMPLICATIONS BRIGHTER PLAY AT HOME. Spare a tear, gentle reader, for the Lords High Everything <ojiT British Rugby! After many sleepless nights, many- hours in the meetings of special committee and then of the International Rugby Board, they evolved a complicated law lot the scrummage whicii was .automaticallv to abolish all fighting for the ‘ftoos© head,” all “pointing” in the front row of the scrummage. But, m their base, ingratitude for all the time* spent on their behalf, the players of the game scarcely bothered to try out the new rule. More in sorrow than in anger, the Lords High Everything then stirred afresh the grey matter under their grey thatches, and their mouthpiece, tlie International Board, issued a long and solemn manifesto, burbling about the spirit and traditions of the game and adjuring players to return to the old-time methods of scrummaging. And the players are just as heedless of these portentous word of the “old men of the tribe” as they were of that so-carefully framed law about the scrummage! And the Lords High Everything wag their old heads and ask themselves, pathetically, of what avail is wisdom!

But away with flippancy! Let us he politely serious and examine the position with the respect due to men who, however short their vision, have striven according to their lights to advance the game of their youth, writes A.L.C. in the “Ohristchureh Sun.” On© conclusion to be- drawn from the facts is that the legislators of Rugby have got farther away than ever "before from the players of the game. That this is so has been suggested before in these solumns; the experience, so far, of the present- footfall season in the United Kingdom and Ireland makes that view clearer still. It may b© that as the season advances fthe legislators will regain some of their former influence, but at present it is quite obvious that their influence is not active in circles not •contiguous to thomseLves, and that even in their own neighbourhood it has waned There is ample evidence that Rugby clubs at Home are not merely disregarding the circular letter recently- issued by the International Board; they are making even less effort than they made last season to observe the new law about the- scrummage. Not all the clubs are disregarding the letter, but the leading ones certainly are. Probably the legislators will manage to have the international matches in the season played under the old “first up, first down” way of scrummaging, but what confusion there will be if the forwards have nob had any experience of this in their own club matches! . There 5s not even any certainty that the English county competition, which is so much under Rugby Union influence, will be play-ed in the “first up, first down’ 5 style of scrummaging. The Yorkshire Rugby Union,, the secretary of which is senior vice-presid-ent of the Rugby Union of England, has asked its clubs to revert to the old style of play, hut at the Yorkshire meeting it was pointed out that if other clubs did not adopt the principle it was. 'likely that the Yorkshire’s team in the county competition would be handicapped. The expression of that fear does not indicate any faith in the efficiency of reversion to the very old order of things. The experience of one of Yorkshire’s leading clubs, which, it is said, lost a match because it tried to follow out the International Board’s idea, whereas the other side did not, is not likely to* breed faith in the board’s proposal. Possibly the game would he well served if the International Board’s antiquated idea dul prevail in county and international games this season for comparisons with club games might help to make* that idea wither and die. , , The English club Rugby in which the International Board’s circular has had no effect has been of a better standard than for many years past. “Although th© Rugby season is* still young, everyone is agreed that the majority of games so far played have gone with 'a swing from start to finish, and have provided football of ,a much, higher quality than is* usual at this time of the year,” says th© principal Rugby critic of one of the biggest papers in London. Much of the same thing is said by others. The critic whom I have just quoted was much less sceptical than most of his fellowsi about th© effect of the International Board’s circular, when it appeared. Now he .-suggests that the circular has had a good effect, that although the recommendations in it have not been carried out by the clubs .it has spurred clubs on to show that the modern game is all right without any reversion to a very old style-. There may he) some good foundation for that theory, but a perusal of the opinion of other writers and of present-day players in Great Britain is that by far the great majority siniply dismissed the board’s circular a “very nice in theory hut impossible in practice,” and that the improvement in play is duo to other causes. In any case, the players in general contend" that the modern game demands specialists, and say that they aj’e not going to depart from that principle. Turning for a few minutes, to some authentic information about Rugby in Wales, one notices, particularly, two of the causes —one primary and the other secondary—of improvement in th© standard of play. These causes may not have operated in the improvement of the plav of the principal English clubs, but they are not altogether absent from the raising of the standard in some of tli© English clubs, and their influence is spreading. In any ease, they are a sign of the times, and one of the fingerposts to the modern conditions which have not been regarded either sufficiently of spmpathetically by the International Board. The primary cause alluded to is the if aat that nowadays a Rug by Club needs to be conducted upon sound financial lines. Football grounds cost more to obtain and more to maintain than they did when the members of the International Board played Rugby, and the greater increase in the number of players demands greater facilities for th© playing of the game. Take, for instance, the case of the well-known Pontypool Club, in AVales. That club had quite recently, an overdraft of something like £2OOO. It has reduced th© overdraft to less than £4OO, and it hopes to wipe that off this season, and then undertake more improvements at its grounds.. But to* carry out its programme it must play bright Rugby that wil attract the public, and the club realises that. Other clubs in AVales —and in England too—arc trying to improve their play, not only because they find

brighter Rugby more enjoyable to the players, but also because they desire to attract the public in greater numbers and so strengthen their finances. To that end some of them are replacing the older members of their first teams with young players. The time has gone when a player can get into a first fifteen and remain in it, simply on his reputation until the end of his playing-days. Even in many clubs which have not been so complaisant toward their older players there is now keener competition for places in the first teams, from the increasing influx of players from public schools that have turned over from Association football to Rugby. The pressure of the times, leading clubs to management on sound financial fines, an]d the increase in the, number of players, are important factors in tlie improvement of the game, in England and Wales particularly, whereas the International Board’s circular is, if a factor at all, only an indefinite one. Moverover, players are realising that they get more enjoyment themselves out' of game which is attractive to the public. That specialisation in forward play lias come to stay should be obvious to everyone but members of the International Rugby Board. It lias come in the natural evolution of the game from the time when the backs but not the forwards bad specialised positions. It has resulted' from the increased application of brains to the game, and to the speeding-up of play which has come into Rugby just as it has come 1 into' our. sports. With greater speed there is need for greater accuracy—that is the common, experience of modern sports—and it is futile for legislators m any sport to close tlieir eyes to the fact. The complicated scrummage law which was introduced just over a year ago possibly would have ■worked satisfactorily in the very old days of long, slow scrummaging, when quick and frequent possession of the ball ,by the backs was not desired, hut it is entirely out of tune with the modern game. Eventuallv it must go the way of all complicated and undesirable legislation. It is a. nuisance just now, and it makes many people wrathful —none the less wrathful because it cannot be applied int its entirely—but, after all, it has served some good purpose in having revealed more clearlv the stupidity "of the International Rugby Board as a body, and the rift between legislation and practice in the game. For the present New Zealanders may view the Rugby situation in the Home countries with some amusement. Let us also hope that they do not also have occasion to become anxious when the next Rugby season m tlie Dominion is near jit band —anxious because of an inclination of the New Zealand Rugby Union to adopt the views of the International Board without inquiring how much, or how little, those views are representative of the general trend of Rugby thought m the Home 1 countries. However, it will Tie surprising indeed, if the at-