REPLACEMENT OF RUGBY PLAYERS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 266, 4 August 1921, Page 5

REPLACEMENT OF RUGBY PLAYERS

Sir—ln his letter published in your issue’of Saturday last, "An Old Player, in discussing the question of the replacement of flayers disabled during u match, makes the statement that in the match played by the All Blacks agains Scotland in 1905 two of the players ot the latter team "were carried off ths field in the last quarter of an hour, but for which lucky happening he suggests that the Now Zealanders would m all probability have experienced a father of a beating." A football enthusiast, then as now, I happened at tho time to read several accounts from various sources of the match in question, and in none of them,was there anything st alt to bear out the statement made. Moreover, seeing with what bad grace the Scottish team and their supporters took their defeat, it is only reasonable to suppose that if such an incident had pcciirred, the most of it would have been made in explanation of the home sides defeat; yet, from my own knowledge, 1 am able > say that no such excuse was offered at the time. Rather, hoi ever, than rely altogether on memory, I havo made it my special business to bring youp correspondent's, letter under the direct notice of a prominent member of the All Black team, who himself took part in that memorable match and have his emphatic assurance that not one man was lost to tfio Scottish cido, through, injury during the progress ot the match. I m asking you to be so good as to publish this letter, RS 1 do not think it right that such deliberate misrepresentation on the part of An Old Player” should be allowed to pass unchallenged.—l lam, etc., ALSO AN OLD PLAYER.