TOUR-MAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 133, 26 August 1927, Page 10

TOUR-MAD

N.Z. Rugby Dances to the Tune of Gates and Tours

Whole System Requires Overhaul

FROM the North Cape to the Bluff, the Dominion is in th» throes of its yearly epidemic of Rugby tours. Prom the bright boys of the city to the burly and unsophisticated cow-cockie of Cabbage Tree Flat, anyone with any pretensions to football ability is jazzing to the tune of ’ The Touring Lullaby.”

cpHE business of the office must play second fiddle to this latest form of Rugby-mania. A long-suffering employer with “the good old game” in his blood, can be depended upon to “spar up” with the necessary leave to enable the budding Brownlies and Cookes to go on tour with the A, B or C reps., as the case may be. Mercifully, at Cabbage Tree Plat, the cows have gone dry and the factory is closed down for the year. Otherwise, Dad and the Pommy would have to do the whole of the milking while the boys are away with the football team. A CHEAPENED HONOUR In the old days a representative jersey was a much-prized honour. Now, it has become so cheapened by interminable touring that any good senior player can count himself unlucky if he doesn’t secure A, B or C rep. honours before the season is over. With everything else sacrificed to rep. football, the club season—formerly the backbone of the game in New Zealand—is little more than a curtain-raiser to an extensive series of rep. matches. And the question arises: Is it doing the game any good? In the metropolitan area of Auckland it can be said that the position is by no means as bad as in other provinces. Last year the Auckland Rugby Union made a drastic cut in its touring programme by leaving out the customary jaunt through the South Island. Further than that, the A.R.P.U. has resolutely declined to become embroiled in the frantic squabbling for that much coveted and battle-solied trophy, the Ranfurly Shield AN ILL-USED GIFT This 25-year-old gift of a former Governor whose family estates were put up for auction in Ireland the other week, is supposed to represent the Rugby championship of New Zealand. Actually, it does nothing of the sort. In the last few years it has been little more than an excuse for gladiatorial displays, training camps and a welter of touring. Manawatu-Horowhenua (to give in full the hybridised name which originated in the fertile brain of a Southern pressman during the exigencies of a hastily compiled report) was beaten by Auckland on Saturday, but it still goes on its way rejoicing as “the holders ot the Ranfurly Shield.” Manawhenua may be a first-class team on its own ground, but like most other provinces, an extended tour is a

I different proposition, and no real t. . ! of a province’s standing. eSI BETTER METHOD NEEDED Some better system of arrivimr a true test of Dominion Rugbv miership is urgently needed The Zealand Rugby Union, which has w desperately striving to retain th2 amateur status of the parent cm. might well give its serious attend™ to some practical system of settine “ standard for club and rep. football and at the same time cutting d OTn the staggering list of representative tours that are taking place every year And while on the job it would do no harm to remodel the grouping 0 f Union areas, with a view to abolishing a whole host of tiddlev-winktn-Unions, which could be better seived by the status of sub-unions. AN EXAMPLE FROM SOCCER When all is said and done, the Association game might well serve as a model for the Dominion’s tour-mad Rugby Unions. The administrators of the round ball game have tacitly laid down the principle that club football is the life-blood of the game. They have fostered it and at the same time avoided the necessity for prolonged tours, by evolving the district scheme for determining the champion club team of New Zealand, which carries with it the Chatham Cup. The New Zealand Football Association has also evolved a comprehensive and eminently satisfactory method of arriving at provincial supremacy The English F.A. trophy is competed for by the four major provinces, which have the right to draw upon minor associations for rep matches, on the same lines as the Plunket Shield in cricket. The minor associations in their turn determine the question of premiership by means of the Brown Shield competition. The longer the New Zealand Rugby Union delays in setting its house in order, the greater the danger of the present unwieldy system collapsing like a ricketty scaffolding. Already there have been hints of the undisputed sway of the Rugby game in Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki being seriously challenged by the rival code. One conclusion cannot be avoided. The Rugby game in New Zealand is fast reaching a stage where it is bemg propped up by incessant pandering to “gates”; the raising of prominent players to the status of dewi-gods before whom even the referees must bow down and worship; and the in evitable feast of touring as the plums to attract the rank and file of players and committee members.—J. M. McK.