RUGBY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18418, 21 March 1928, Page 8

RUGBY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS.

RUGBY is ushered in this year with a very creditable report by the Canterbury Rugby Union. The province is at last in possession of the Ranfurly Shield, and has the distinction of having secured eight representatives in the All Blacks for South Africa. Such heavy representation must increase the danger of losing the Ranfurly Shield, but Canterbury have never made a fetish of trophies and, if the Shield goes, it will be all the better for Rugby somewhere else. At the same time, Canterbury must be true to tradition and put up the stiffest fight possible against each and every challenger. There should be no weakening, and it will be the duty of the selectors to see that fit and skilful players are chosen to fill gaps in the provincial side. That backs and forwards of high standard can be found, we have not the slightest doubt. An important point is that the Rugby Union should outline a definite policy for its selectors at the outset, particularly with regard to training and coaching. Canterbury teams in the past have often suffered from lack of preparation. As a background to local Rugby this year the fortunes of the New Zealand team in South Africa will, of course, be followed with the keenest interest, especially as South Africa is still a somewhat unknofwn quantity to New Zealand teams, and tlie visit is the first that the All Blacks have made to the Union. In that connection it is most regrettable that there should be much more cordiality among the Dominions themselves than there is between the Dominions and the Old Country in Rugby matters. No British team has visited New Zealand since 1908, and the 1924 visit of the All Blacks to England was the first for nineteen years. There is a screw loose somewhere when the Rugby authorities at Home persistently slight New Zealand in this matter. If Australia and New Zealand had direct representation on the International Board a better spirit might prevail, brt at present it is difficult, as the president of the Canterbury Rugby Union says, to know just what lies behind the reluctance of the International Board to “play the game” in regard to international fixtures. An English visitor has expressed the view that the All Blacks were unpopular in England because they always played to win, but we think that any team that did not always play to win would be unworthy of consideration as a truly sporting side. If this is the real reason for the undoubted coolness that exists, it is not very creditable to those who control the game of Rugby at Home.