School Rugby

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 14

School Rugby

Sir,—lt could be that some recent remarks from a senior Rugby administrator have been noted by some young impressionable players. One of the best grades—under-20 —has now become suspect I have watched School-Christ’s matches before and since they were removed from Lancaster Park, and was disgusted at this last display. Even boys who have played in these matches were dismayed at the standards. It should be the responsibility of the coaeh and captain of a schoolboy team to instil sportsmanship regardless of any winning technique. Perhaps the abandonment of next year’s game might offer a breathing space for some reflection.—Yours, etc., COLLISEUM. July 15, 1966.

Sir,—The reporter who covered the secondary schools Rugby match at Straven road on Wednesday is to be complimented on the manner in which he drew attention to the less savoury aspects of the game. If the behaviour on the field of some of the players is typical of schoolboy football, a reversion to a less brutal code of sport could well be considered by the administrators of what, up till Wednesday, I had considered to be one of our great schools and the nursery of some of our best sportsmen. Can one wonder at the instances of dirty play at provincial and national levels after seeing

the manner in which certain youths deliberately kicked and jumped on their smaller opponents? Where the excellent referee erred was in not sending the chief offender off the field after the first assault on a prostrate player. To allow him to continue with his particular style of Rugby was tantamount to giving him a blank cheque which he and one or two others took the liberty of endorsing.—Yours, DISGUSTED. July 14, 1966.

Sir, —In an inter-college Rugby match the major injuries among the players were one broken leg, one injured leg, a spinal injury. The game according to your reporter, was unfriendly. Is the Rugby Union waiting for a fatality before trying to stamp out rough Rugby? Is the poor sportsmanship and brutality of senior players going to permeate to the junior grades?—Yours, etc., SOCCER FAN. July 14, 1966. Sir, —Each of the two schools concerned has, according to its particular traditions, a well-established reputation to keep up—or lose. Cannot we leave it, in complete confidence, to their respective headmasters, prefects, old boys, indeed the vast majority of the boys themselves, to see that such unseemly incidents do not recur? In my day, admittedly a lot of years ago, at a school that has won many a hard-fought game against the most famous of all schools in this context—Rugby—the offenders would have got it in the neck, if not elsewhere. A notice in the school cloisters, signed by the head prefect, “I want to see the following in the Vlth Form Room at 5 o’clock today,” would have apprised them, and everyone else, of what they might expect.—Yours, etc., ILAM. July 15, 1966. [This correspondence is now closed. Ed., “The Press.”]