LEAVES OF A SPORTFOLIO

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6841, 23 April 1932, Page 13

LEAVES OF A SPORTFOLIO

Legislation In Rugby— Fobbing Off The Dominions—Curiosities Of English Selections

the New Zealand. Rugby Union, as constituted nowadays, is I10 * ; remarkable for disWrleHKu plays of acumen, it had enou Sh sense not to accept representation on the Rugby Football Commission which a meeting of representatives of the four Home unions had planned. Representation on such a commission, meeting not more often than once in three years, and subject to having its. decisions vetoed by the International Rugby Board, would be quite useless. The proposal to form a commission with such limited power was just a new way of fobbing off again the Dominions unions’ request for representation on the body which makes the laws of the game. The way in which the commission was projected was in itself an insult to the Dominions unions. Before they proposed that the commission he set"up the Home unions revised the laws of the game, making some important changes, without any consultation with the Dominions. One imagines that if the Home unions had been really sincere in their expressed desire to give the Dominions representation on a consultative—though not a truly legislative—authority they, would have deferred adoption of their proposed changes in the laws until after the offer to set up the commission had been made, and bad been considered by the Dominions. However, the delegates to the annual meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Union seem to have passed politelv by that insult. Possibly they did not notice it. Their discussion of the subject of the proposed commission was not. marked by either much insight or much appreciation of the fact that a “red herring” was drawn across the trail. The Otago Union’s amendment to the Canterbury Union’s motion on this subject should have been ruled out of order, as it was not at. all different in principle from the motion. The delegates were very much at sea, too, when they discussed the question of the new scrum rule and the “threefronted” scrum. Very few of them appeared to have come to an understanding of the new law, and they allowed the change in the law. the question whether or not New Zealand should abolish the 2-3-2 scrum, and the question whether or not the wing-forward should be abolished, to be jumbled up in the one discussion. The matter of a three-fronted scrum against .a twofronted one should have been discussed quite apart from the new law. Then, a three-fronted scrum having been adopted—it is obvious that it would have been adopted even in an orderly discussion, and recognition of that does not imply belief in the wisdom of the change—(he delegates could well have given closer attention to the change in the Jaw, and have sought from the International Rugby Board, through the English Rugby Union, exemption from that part of the law which deals with the first three feet of the front-row forwards on each side, until club teams in the Dominion had become accustomed to the threefronted scrum.

crs arc too insistent on residence as tlic prime ciualilication for playing foi a representative team. But we do save our Rugby administrators some work bv having that as the prime qualification. Imagine what might happen if Canterbury, desirous of retaining the Ranfurlv Shield, were able to follow' the British international system, and keeping a register of all good playcis who had been horn in Canterbury but had gone to other provinces, were able to pick its shield-defending team from Canterbury-horn players as well as those living in the province! _ But the British way of picking for Scotland, say, men who had ncvei played in Scotland, but who had had the fortune —good, had or inifferent, as you will—-to he horn in Scotland, is only mild 1 v curious when placed beside the fact that a man can play in one country’s trial games and then tie chosen for another country, without having changed his place of residence in the" meantime. . , A few months ago there was me hid eel is one of the AVelsli Rugby Unions trial matches, a player named A. Vaughan-.lones, who was horn in Wales, of a Welsh father and an English mother, but who had played all Ins club football in England; he is an officer in the Royal Artillery. 'lhe Welsh selectors decided that he was not good enough for their team. Vaughan-.Toncs had not played in an English.trial, but between England's matches, with Wales and with Ireland the English selectors decided, as is usual with them nowadays, that they must have several changes in their team. Having ascertained that the Welsh Rugby Union would not offer any objection, they chose Vaughan-Jones to play for England against Ireland.

THERE have been so many changes in England’s Rugby team that one English paper has been likening the' team to a moving stage. Its selectors seem quite unable to make up their minds upon a team to play two or three matches together. They held some trials in the earlier part of the season, and then England had matches with South Africa, Wales, and Ireland, several changes being made each time. Yet, after all that, they had to have another trial before they chose their team for the match with Scotland 1 Only half of. the players who took part in Hie earlier trials survived for the last one. Six of the men who played for England against the Springboks, including half of the pack, were not even among the .10 for the final trial. Ten of the forwards who were in the trial just before the match against South Africa were left out this time. Only eight of the BO players who appeared in the final trial for the 193031 season were left in the running this time. Seventeen of the men who played for England in the 1930-31 season were then new to international Rugby. Only four of them were included in the recent trial. Within two seasons England “capped” 30 players new to international Rugby. In England’s frequently-changing team in the 1931-32 season tliei-c were only two players whose experience of international Rugger went hack to 1929. One of them is C. D. Aarvold, who was in New Zealand in 1930, as a member of the British team. A. L. G.

QUITE frequently arc there some rather diverting aspects of the selection of players for international Hugger matches in Great Britain and Ireland. Possibly we New Zealand-