RUGBY QUALIFICATION

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 44, 22 February 1936, Page 9

RUGBY QUALIFICATION

A “BOGEY” IN BRITAIN WHO SHALL PLAY FOR WHO? RUSSIAN GETS AN ENGLISH CAP. (By Air Mail.) National qualification is still the Rugby topic, wrote Leo Munro in the Daily Express (London) on January 14. Choice of Obolensky, from Russia, and Owen-Smi.th (South Africa), as English caps—that opened the discusiion,. Now we have Cooper, New Zealander, picked to play for Scotland against Wales. X have heard no challenge to the Welsh qualification of B. E. W. McCall, who, presumably, will be sent to mark Obolensky at Swansea next Saturday. So that’s all right, and if McGregor Cooper sound more Scotch .than McCall sounds Welsh, we must remember that McCall plays for the Welsh Regiment —helped them to win the Army Cup last season.' There’s no doubt that the qualification “bogey”- is causing uneasiness among Rugby men. My postbag is a pointer. This extract from a letter seems typical: —- ‘I would like to see England represented by Englishmen ait all sports, but to include men born abroad of English parents. Of course, it would be a pity if a man of Obolensky’s calibre was debarred from topclass football, especially as he is a product of English ‘Rugger.’ However, a hard-and-fast rule is needed.” Will the international authorities make any move in tho matter 1 ! I shall be surprised if they do. It has been go-as-you-please ever since the championship was revived in 1920, when the English team included men with Welsh and South African associations. A list of Scottish internationals for that year gave the Highland name of Neil Macpherson, a Scot by parentage, but —remember what my correspondent wrote about Obolensky—a product of Welsh “Rugger.” And on the same list appeared the less Scottish name of Fahiny, described there as of Abertillery. The position is, has been, and will be unsatisfactory, and it is difficult to resist the impression that England are

chiefly responsible for keeping a muddle untidy. Still, England are the "good boys” on one point this season, though it ns wide of the main question. Every Englishman capped so far plays for a cup in England, and that is more than Scotland, Wales and even Ireland can say. Hayden Tanner is the only member of the Welsh back division who appears regularly in a “ native ’’ club team, Scotland’s selection for the match against Wales on February 1 shows E. G. S. Hick (Guy’s Hospital), H. Lind and W. A. H. Druitt (London Scottish), K. C. Fyfe (Cambridge I'niversify), M. McG. Cooper (Oxford University) and G, D. Shaw (Sale), o