RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31116, 20 July 1966, Page 28

RANDOM REMINDER

PACK DRILL

We did well to resist, for the first time in years, the temptation to wallow in nostalgic memories of the Old School on the occasion of its annual Rugby match last week with the Old College. But we find it necessary today to refer to Rugby, in another place. There has been a disappointing lack of recent news about the North Island move to have Rugby clubs for girls. In Hamilton or Auckland or somewhere like that a madkeen Rugby girl put an advertisement in a newspaper seeking support for the establishment of a Rugby club or two, and she promptly had 60 replies.. What has happened to

the scheme? We can only suppose that this latest • drive for emancipation has been halted by a appreciation of the prohibitive costs involved in setting up new clubs for girls. They would have to have their own buildings, obviously—and the sort they would need can’t be built for less than a Ranfurly Shield income—full length mirrors all round the changing rooms, hair-setting apparatus, sewing machines, chaises tongues perhaps, dressing tables, heaters, the lot. There would be other obvious difficulties. Unless a close-shaven cult sweeps the country—and the manufacturers of all those

preparations are likely to make certain it doesn't—there would be a marked reluctance to become a front-row forward. It’s fearsome enough in there in men’s matches—imagine what would happen to women’s long hair, especially if the referee had been a bit lax on the sprig and fingernail inspection before the start of the game.

No, it's just as well that this new move looks like foundering. Girls have no place in Rugby. If they had, last week’s match might have been between Christ’s College and St Margaret's. The very thought is enough to undermine the foundations« of a stable society.