Scottish Rugby

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 673, 27 May 1929, Page 7

Scottish Rugby

Game Slowly Yields To Modern Methods The fact that the Scottish Rugby Union has assented to Scottish players joining the British team that is to visit New Zealand and Australia next year is an interesting indication of a modification of old prejudices. The change in feeling toward modern methods is even greater in Scotland than that, although it has not all extended to the union. The Scottish people have been hotly assailing their union for not falling into line with other countries and numbering its players in international matches. There is also a demand for more accommodation at the Murrayfield ground, where the international matches are played. That ground was improved four years ago. but it is far from able to accommodate the crowds With the Scottish Rugby Union making net profits of over £13,000 a year, it is 1 held that the union ought to get down to the work of suitably accommodating the playing public. But a Scottish correspondent says that the union’s policy is dictated by a handful of men who reck nothing of popular clamour. The greatest change that has been operating since the war is the absence of casualness on the part of the players in the leading club teams. A popular drinking bar used in the old days to be spoken of as the. training ground of this club and the next. Nowadays some of the clubs have electric light equipment to enable their players to train through the winter. Other clubs carry through midweek lunch-hour practices. The players in a leading Border club, it was intimated recently, underwent a “special preparation” for a particular game. Not so long ago this w'ould have savoured to the faithful of professional association ways. Some years ago there was a charge against a certain club that “it trained.” This club. Heriot’s School Former Pupils, won the club championship in 1919-20, again in 1922-23. again in 1927-28 and now in 1928-29. It prospered on training. but it set the fashion. Training is the vogue today. The advocates of decent preparation are greatly eneourjaged by the fact that Scotland won the international championship on staying power.