Aspects of Rugby Football.
It is impossible to be blind to the fact that the present state of Rugby football is causing very real anxiety to an increasing number of players and supporters. Although it would be foolish to read too much into recent disputes, many people are wondering if those who control the game have lost sight of the fact that it is a game, and that their first duty is to guard the interests of those who play and not to provide the public with cheap entertainment. It is time to remind ourselves that the schoolboy who kicks a football in a muddy corner of a reserve is entitled to consideration before every one of the four or five thousand people who pay their shillings at .Lancaster Park or anywherfe else. It is also a mistaken idea to encourage youths to play football simply because some of them will become firstgrade players, or representative players, or even All Blacks. They should be encouraged to play because they will benefit in both mind and body, and to play for the pleasure of the game alone. Most of us quite rightly feel pleased when Canterbury produces a team good enough to beat any other province, or when the All Blacks beat some other country, but we ought to realise that if representative and international football matches were stopped to-morrow only the gentlemen who howl for blood from the embankments on Saturday afternoons would be any the worse off. On the other hand the reputation of the game would benefit considerably if thia were to happen, since interprovincial football in this country has too often been associated, not merely with unedifying squabbles, but. also with something worse; and the public unfortunately judge the whole game by these unsavoury incidents. It ought to be remembered that while two All Blacks were behaving like children in a Ranfurly Shield match, thousands of people in different parts of the country were playing the game simply because it was a good way of passing an afternoon.
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Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19063, 27 July 1927, Page 8
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341Aspects of Rugby Football. Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19063, 27 July 1927, Page 8
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