Return Of New South Wales To A Modified Law Of Rugby

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1935, Page 12

Return Of New South Wales To A Modified Law Of Rugby

OPINION OF PLAYERS PREVAILS ON KICKING INTO TOUCH

A LTHOUGH it has not obtained from the Rugby Union of England, with which it is in membership, any dispensation from the laws of the game adhered to by that body, the New South Wales Rugby Union has decided to revert, for its club games, to the modified kick-into-touch rule, which kicks direct into touch outside its own twenty-five. A knotty point of constitutional law may be involved in the decision. According to the constitution of the Rugby Union of England, only clubs and unions willing to conform to the by-laws, laws of the game, and rules as to professionalism which are adopted by that union may be in membership with it. A question which arises, then, is whether or not the New South Wales Union is entitled to retain its affiliation with the English Union while it is not conforming exactly with the laws of the game approved by the latter body. However, the legal pundits may be left to argue over the validity of an opinion, obtained by the New South Wales Union, that its action is not unconstitutional.

A very interesting aspect of the New South Wales action is that the reversion to a modified kick-into-touch rule has been brought about by the players. It is authoritatively stated in Sydney that most of the opposition to the change came from club officials, not from players. A two-thirds majority was necessary to bring the proposal for reversion into effect, and this was only just obtained in the ballot, but it appears.that among the players the body of opinion favouring the change was proportionately much greater than that among the officials. It is clear, therefore, that most of the players recognise that there has been too much indiscriminate kicking into touch in the game as they have been playing it. * * *

The New South Wales decision is sure to cause the question of a return to the modified rule to be raised again in New Zealand, but I do not think it will be taken very seriously this year. As the New Zealand team which is to visit the United Kingdom and Ireland will be selected before the season is half through nothing would be gained by arguing the question before then, let alone making a change. The members oi that team must be left to carry on with the kick-into-touch rule to which they are accustomed and which they must follow on their tour. The position before the New Zealand team which visited the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1924-25 season was different. The members of that team had no difficulty in changing from observance of the modified kick-into-touch rule, then followed in the Dominion, to application of the British rule, but they had longer experience of the modified rule than would be possible for this year’s team, and some of them had played under the rule which has come into force again in New Zealand, as well as under the modified law. Incidentally, however, it may be pointed out that the experience of the 1924-25 All Blacks indicated that the New South Wales players should have no difficulty in changing over from one kick-into-touch rule for club games to another for inter-State and international matches.

The outstanding point is that most of the New South Wales players have determined that the conditions in which their club games are played shall not be determined rigidly by the Rugby Union of England and the International Rugby Board, though they will adhere to the laws made by those bodies for international games. Club football is the main purpose of the game, and the liberty of the players in it to have a set of rules that suits them should, not be curtailed too closely. Inquiries which I have made from time to time indicate that most men who have played under both the modified kick-into-touch rule and that which is in force again in New Zealand prefer the modification, and that most of the opposition to reversion comes from officials who have never played under the modified rule. However, the question need not

be raised toi ardently in the Dominion this season. For the time being, officials and players should content themselves with watching, as best they can, the effect of the change in New South Wales on club football there, and prepare for discussion between the 1935 and 1936 seasons of the question whether or not New Zealand also should not revert to the modified rule for its domestic matches. A.L.C.