RUGBY CODE ON STEADY DECLINE IN BRITAIN?

Southland Times, Issue 23773, 22 March 1939, Page 11

RUGBY CODE ON STEADY DECLINE IN BRITAIN?

New Zealand Rugby administrators who are at all concerned with the welfare of the game should read carefully the following from the London correspondent of The Christchurch Star-Sun. It opens up again the controversial question of reducing scrum chaos or resigning oneself to less and less interest in the Rugby Union code:— “For some time now club Rugby in London has been attracting fewer and fewer spectators. I hear much the same story from big provincial centres. Even for the international match with Scotland last Saturday the Cardiff ground was not really packed out. And in Wales Rugby is the democratic game, and not confined to wearers of old school ties. “If present tendencies continue, as they must unless somebody has the sense to change the rules and check the evils which are ruining a glorious game the time is not far distant when Twickenham and Murrayfield may be much too big for the spectators who want to attend even international matches. “Nobody will question Mr D. R. Gent’s Rugby enthusiasm. But he tells us Saturday’s Scotland-Wales game was a poor one, ‘at times dreadfully dull to watch,’ and that ‘there was hardly a single bout of passing that looked like leading to a score.’ And, as usual, nearly half the total score came from penalty kicks. “/IND DULL TO PLAY” “So far as my experience goes, and I have seen every international match played at Twickenham, Mr Gent’s description of the Cardiff game applies to most. Modern Rugby, owing to the complete eclipse of open back play by wing-forward and back defence tactics, is ‘dreadfully dull to I watch.’ What is still more serious

from the sporting standpoint* it is getting just as dull to play. “The very raison d’etre of Rugby—a tussle between the packs to give their backs a chance to run—has been sterilized. It sounds like high treason in an old Rugby player to say it, but I believe the 60,000 people who still methodically go to watch international matches at Twickenham would be far more thrilled if they saw a good Soccer game. “The Soccer authorities see to it that Soccer is kept a fast open game. The Rugby gods have allowed Rugby to degenerate into a tedious and rather rough-house scramble. It would be desolating if Rugby eventually petered out. But that is the danger.”