“ATROCIOUS REFEREES”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 455, 10 September 1928, Page 13

“ATROCIOUS REFEREES”

N.Z. LEAGUE ASSAILED BAD PLAY AND ADMINISTRATION (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) SYDNEY, Sunday. Mr. Dave Murray, who trained the last three English Rugby League teams, utters a scathing indictment of the New Zealand League code. He says: “If a New Zealand team were brought to Sydney it would be playing curtain-raisers within three weeks. Do not be deluded by the results of our matches in New Zealand. The play was bad, the administration was worse and the refereeing was atrocious. “In the first test match the majority of the English players refused to return to the field, but were persuaded by the manager and the captain to do so. The Christchurch test match was a bloody battle. Burgess had his nose smashed to pulp, and, to add insult to injury, was sent off the field. The New Zealand team had a free go and it was merciless.

“There are only four good players in the Dominion. Off the field the Englishmen were treated splendidly, but on it they had a dreadful time.”

“IRRESPONSIBLE TALK”

MURRAY TAKEN TO TASK LEAGUE OFFICIAL'S VIEW “It is hard to believe that Murray should make such extraordinary statements,” said a prominent League authority to-day. “It’s an obsolute slur on the game in New Zealand, and on the council, and the worst of it is that this sort of thing should be broadcast when half of it is quite incorrect. “For instance,” he continued, “Murray has a lot to say about the third test, yet all the newspapers were unanimous that it was a hard, clean game. It was in the second test that Burgess got his nose broken, not the third. It is nonsense to say it was smashed to pulp. I met Burgess here in Auckland before he left, and he told me the injury was not serious, and he expected to be ready to play at Vancouver in the exhibition match.

“Murray, who was more of a baggage man than a. trainer in New Zealand, becomes childish when he says that if a New Zealand team were brought to Sydney, it would be playing curtain-raisers within three weeks. New Zealand gave the Englishmen a much closer run in the tests than did the Australians, and if there was rough play on the tour, the Englishmen were not any too backward in getting into it themselves.”

“Murray seems to have a mighty poor memory when he talks about the standard of the game here. He told me himself that he was surprised at the high standard in New Zealand, and it is a poor spirit on his part after the hospitality he received in the Dominion, to indulge in wild and irresponsble talk when lie got back to Sydney.”