FOOTBALL.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 October 1921, Page 11

FOOTBALL.

SPRINGBOKS’ METHODS. A REFEREE’S CRITICISM. FLIRTING WITH OFFSIDE RULE. “The record of the Springboks would have been much lees notable if the team had not been greatly favored by the rulings of the referees who controlled their matches here,” is the dictum of a prominent Auckland referee, Mr. A. Wctherilt, President of the Auckland Referees’ Association. Holding that opinion, Mr. Wetherilt takes issue with Mr. 11. C. Bennett, manager of the Springboks’ team, on the latter’s statement that the team had not been fairly treated in the matter of interpretation df the rules. Mr. Bennett’s statement, lie holds, is an innuendo that the Springboks triumphed despite the handicap of adverse and unfair referee rulings, whereas Mr. Wetherilt contends that preferential treatment by the referees in favor of the visitors helped them to win their games.

THE PRINTED LAW. In support of his contention, Mr. Wetherilt, in a chat with a Star representative, produced ,a book of the rules under which the games were played, and pointed, out that at least half a dozeij, of the prescribed penalty clauses, which, he holds, were habitually infringed by the South Africans with impunity in the two matches played- at Auckland. The book says: “Free kicks by way of penalty shall be awarded if any player—law 11 (a) intentionally either handles the ball or falls down in a scrummage, or picks the ball out of a scrummage, or picks it up in a scrummage either by hands or legs. (b) “Does not immediately put in down in front of him on being_tackled. (c) “Being on the ground, does not immediately get up. (e) “Illegally tackles, charges or obstructs. (h) “Wilfully puts' the ball unfairly into a scrummage, or, the ball having come out, wilfully returns it. by hand or foot into the scrummage. (j) “Not himself running for the ball wilfully charges or obstructs an opponent not holding the ball.” He also dra-ws attention to rule 7, which directs that a player is off-side if he enters a scrummage from his opponents’ side. The. language of these rules, Mr. Wetherilt points out, is plain enough for anybody, and he recalled that any onlooker of the two matches the Springboks played in Auckland could not help being struck by the consistent and. sys- i tema-tic manner in which the ball was hooked by hand and foot out of the scrummages by the visiting half-back, as well as by the persistent hanging, to the ball of the South African players on being tackled with it when defending. His point is that the visitors, though plainly according outside the printed word as well as the spirit of the laws in these respects, were rarely penalised for these offences in scrummage and ruck play, and were thus given an undue advantage over the -home players accustomed to strict refereeing on these points in their club games. He observed that the old trick of offside tactics in line-out play, by which an immense ad vantage can be obtained by a very slight variation in the flight of the ball in throwing out, was also in vogue with the visitors, and was not penalised as it would be by referees in games in which two New Zealand teams were engaged. It is very difficult to estimate, Mr. Wetlierrlt points out, the ultimate ef-> feet of such rulings, where one side infringes spasmodically and individually, and the systematically. For one thing the referee must catch only a proportion of the infringements. The effect on the run of the game must be naturally more in favor of the systematic infringers, and. in many instances, actual scores could be traced from advantages arising from undetected infringements, or infringements that Were allowed to pass unchecked. CUTTING OUT “POINTING.” When the All Blacks went to Britain in 1905 they were struck by the fact that, the referees went on the field wearing sports suits or starched collars, or otherwise handicapped for the hot job of keeping up with fast play. That, remarked Mr. Wetherilt, was looked on by the New Zealanders as ridiculous, for they came from a country where the referee was expected to strip off and keep with the game. Since then the referees here, os a result of experience as practical players, who studied the rules and kept up with the game off the field as well as on it, had put both the game and. refereeing on * a higher standard. The effect of certain kinds of systematic offside play and obstruction that was in vogue fifteen years ago had been studied and discussed. As a result referees had recognised, particular aspects of offside play and obstruction that had to be watched for in close play and line-out rucks, where a slight but deliberate infringement could often give a cumulative advantage to a side and was hard to detect. Once this was recognised the referees watched for tricks of this kind and applied the letter of the law to close play, which had the effect of eliminating a decided tendency that then existed among the teams ten years ago, massing into close rucks for the purpose of engineering a break-away by some means that the referee could not detect. This strictness and alertness also enabled referees to detect causes of loss of temper that sometimes appeared without a reason apparent to the outsider.' The result has been a general elimination of “points” among New Zealand forwards and a tendency to more open play where off-side offences are not any more easily detected, but also lose much of the cumulative advantage effect they have in massed play, and can be treated with discretion rather than with strictness.

It was evident from the tenor of his remarks that Mr. Bennett has observed this difference made in breaking offside play in close work and in open work.

“There are certain offences which are treated more seriously in New Zealand than they are in South Africa.” he said. What he had failed to grasp, Mr. Wetherilt explained, was that the New Zealand referees merely acted strictly up to the plain letter of the law in administering penalties for infringements in close play, blit, were more liberal on similar offences in the open. Where they were strict it was not a matter of interpretation, for the law was plain and concise. Ten years ago, or so, obstruction and wilful offside in close work in the ruck, from both scrum and line-out, were commonly played in New Zeelahd teams to “beat the referee/’ and that

style was noticeable in the South African play now. New Zealand referees, by study and alertness, had. very largely eliminated, unfair tactics in messed play here by merely applying penalties strictly and not by any unusual interpretation of rules, but it looked tts if the South African referees were more lackadaisical, and just let the packs fight it out among themselves till some glaring offence in the open called, for the whistle. In his opinion the Springboks were allowed a latitude in close play, in the matter of hanging on to the ball in rush-stopping, and in the practice of entering the opposing side's scrum offside, that was not usual in New Zealand matches nowadays. NOTE'S.”” Writes a N.Z. correspondent to the Sydney Referee:—ln my opinion no advance can be made in N.Z. football till we adopt English rules and stick to them. The rules admit- of good football; it is the player who is at fault. What is to be expected of a forward who is tied up like a brown paper parcel with six others, who aauj pass a ball or

cutch a ball or use his feet—only bigX boots on the end of one’s legs nowadays 3 doesn’t know where to go or what a!j man’s back should tell him, and feels no*, qualms of conscience when he kicks: another man in the ribs or the head.? A sport of the present Rugby football variety is doing no good, and it is. rapidly degenerating into a contest in which there is no chivalry, no admiration for a stout opponent. The desire is to win anyhow and get money anyhow, and the modern crowd on a football field contains us few good judges of football as the racecourse real lovers of the horse.