The Sun MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1928 TEMPER IN SPORT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 425, 6 August 1928, Page 8

The Sun MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1928 TEMPER IN SPORT

ALACK of discipline has become too common a feature of sport and field games in different countries. From three sources far apart there are to-day unpleasant reports concerning the exercise of bad temper and poor sportsmanship in football and athletics. The facts in each case are regrettable. In two of these three foolish displays, New Zealanders and other British lovers of sport and the rigour of the game figure much too prominently. The third instance, which need, only be mentioned, concerns the petulance of champion Finnish athletes at the Olympic Games. The All Blacks, in their triumphant match against the Border team at East London, Cape Colony, on Saturday, appear also to have been equal to what was probably a provocative demand on their ability to give knock for knock with perhaps a little over in “unsavoury mixing in the tight, play.” In any ease both sides had to be cautioned by the referee, who told Maurice Brownlie that if the rough play did not stop the first man caught at it would be ordered off. The fact that the All Blacks were winning easily throughout the game occasions surprise that there should have been any unsavoury mixing at all. Of course, a footballer’s shins are sensitive, and a bruise thereon sometimes invites retaliation. The other display of bad temper in sport was a more glaring demonstration of crude sportsmanship. It followed the exceptionally hard game in the record first test match at Carlaw Bark between the English Rugby League team and a representative New Zealand side, and was demonstrated in circumstances which should have enabled all those-concerned to forget exasperation and vexation. It is to be regretted that the great contest was marred subsequently at a friendly dinner to the welcome visitors in the evening, when the English captain, in honouringthe last toast of the occasion, dishonoured it by a petulant outburst of comment on the manner in which the game had been controlled. He forgot his position and the prestige of his team so far as to challenge the rulings of the referee, and to express disappointment with them. The English captain’s breach of good sporting form was bad enough in itself, but it was a mild indiscretion compared with the rash and resentful retort of the referee, Mr. L. Bull. There is no sense in “talking straight” if an angry man’s straight talk reveals a distorted temper. It is perfectly true that the English team protested far too much on the field, but those who saw the game with a dispassionate vision would not support the referee in his illmannered denunciation o£ England’s representatives as “a lot of ‘pointers’ and unpatriotic ‘squealers.’ ” From the outset of the game it was painfully clear that there was an unfortunate conflict of interpretation of Rugby League rules. The Englishmen may have been hopelessly wrong in their interpretation, but if they were not right they certainly suffered severe punishment for their error. They were penalised so often in the first half of the game that unbiased onlookers were forced to the conclusion that the clash of rule-interpretation was almost farcical—so much so, indeed, that thousands of spectators who saw the game for the first time were not enamoured oi it, and said so with vehement disparagement. It has to be admitted too that from three of the many penalties inflicted on the Englishmen, the New Zealand side scored goals. This was a gift of six points, and sufficient to win the match. Though many people believed honestly that the better football team lost, they had to agree that New Zealand’s representatives excelled themselves in every way, and won on merit. It is to be hoped that a regrettable incident will be forgotten at once, and every effort made to prevent a recurrence of bad temper.