NEW RUGBY RULES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20479, 4 December 1934, Page 12

NEW RUGBY RULES.

Discussion on Canterbury Recommendations. A DISPENSATION WANTED. Canterbury’s suggestions for alterations to the existing rules governing Rugby football, for submission through the New Zealand Union to the coming International Conference in England, were debated at the meeting of the | Management Committee of the union last evening. The Canterbury Union’s recommendations are as follows: (1) That the ball be fairly in the scrum when it has passed one foot of a player on either side, and may then be hooked by any player, with any toot. (2) That the rule which allows the pushing of a player who is stooping to pick up the bail should be deleted. (3) That three points, instead of tour, be allowed for a dropped goal. After discussion it was resolved to recommend the New Zealand Union to ask the coming International Conference for a dispensation allowing New Zealand, if it was so desired here, to go hack to the amended rule regarding kicking into touch which was in force some years ago. It was stated that New South Wales would ask the conference for a dispensation allowing them to play the rule forbidding kicking into touch outside a side’s own twenty-five, line, and suggested that the New Zealanders should give New South Wales support. Mr Moloney said that the New South Welsh Union had amended its constitution, and was going to play the amended rule next year, and, if a I New Zealand team went over, it would have to fall in with conditions there. The time was coming when New Zealand would have to decide whether to stand by the Australians or whether to press for a separate dispensation. “Why not come out into the open?” asked Mr V. L. Jensen. “ The kick into touch rule we are playing at present is a deterrent to the development of the game. We have been subservient long enough. If we make the request on our own, it will still be a backing for New South Wales. If we go on in the way we have for the last few years, we will never get anywhere. We are up against tradition at Home, but that tradition is on the other side of the world. After New Zealand’s record, there can be no question of our loyalty.” 9 “ Have we not got more pull than New South Wales?” asked a member. Mr Moloney said that, as far as the English Rugby Union was concerned, both New South Wales and New Zealand were registered merely as clubs. Mr A. I. Cottrell moved that a dispensation should be sought *for New Zealand quite apart from New South Wales, and that motion was carried unanimously.