SELECTING RUGBY TEAMS

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17804, 31 August 1929, Page 9

SELECTING RUGBY TEAMS

(To the Editor.) Sir, —There appears to be considerable agitation in this centre regarding the selection of representative Rugby teams. As I am only a recent arrival from Wellington I do not know whether or not this is the usual outcry each season. However, I can only illustrate for your readers an experience in Wellington when Harding’s team was in the Dominion in 1908. Roberts and Green were then the halfbacks in the running, with the former very much in the public eye. The public were given the opportunity to exercise their vote on one occasion when both half-backs were in action, and the vote went to Green. I might add that Clem did not let his supporters down either, as he was a dandy behind the scrum. To my view something on these lines couid be tried here. Let the selector pick two of the most even fifteens at the beginning of each period of representative games. When these teams are pitted against each other the selection of the final fifteen, from the thirty playing, could be made by the vote of the public witnessing the match. Those who watched the play would be keen critics and their decision would sift out a team which would not only make the best showing the district could put up, but the means employed would effectively silence the croakers because they had exercised their voice per medium of the vote on selection.—l am, etc., EX-WELLINGTON.