OUTSIDE REFEREES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 747, 21 August 1929, Page 13

OUTSIDE REFEREES

CANTERBURY RUGBY UNION’S POSITION OUTLINED “NOT DICTATING TO AUCKLAND” (Special to THE SUE) CHRISTCHURCH, Tuesday. Although the chairman of its Management Committee (Mr. A. E. McPhail) fought hard to get it to abandon the attitude it had adopted on the point, the Canterbury Rugby Union still declines to agree that an Auckland referee should *be appointed to control the Auckland-Canterbury match to be ■> played in Auckland on August 31. While some of the members of the Canterbury body are swayed by the desire of r the New Zealand Referees’ Association, expressed through members of the New Zealand Rugby Union, that outside referees should be appointed to the control of interprovincial games, the real point that is made is that an Auckland referee, accustomed to applying rules which differ from those in force in other parts of the Dominion, could not reasonably be expected to apply the proper laws of the game in one match or two matches. The New Zealand Rugby Union is to be asked to appoint the referee. When the question came before the Canterbury Union’s Management Committee this evening, Mr. McPhail said that the president of the Canterbury Referees’ Association had suggested to him that it was not a fair thing to ask for the appointment of outside referees to interprovincial matches, unless other unions were prepared to reciprocate. If other unions did not act in the same way, Canterbury referees would not be treated fairly. Mr. S. F. Wilson, president of the union: That is not the point at all, Mr. Chairman. The point that I made when I moved the motion that the Auckland Rugby Union be requested to nominate an outside referee to the match, was that in Auckland they play rules different from those in force in other parts of New * Zealand. I said that if a referee were applying all the season rules that are different from those we play under, he could not adapt himself to our rules in one match. It would not be fair to him or to our team. WHAT MR. WILSON SAW When I was in Auckland this year, 1 saw a referee, supposed to be a good referee, controlling the match, and a forward could not do anything. The forwards could ruot even screw the scrum. That would not be fair to our team. All the international players up there, men such as Lucas and Badeley, men of ripe experience and intelligence, do not agree with the rulqs that Auckland is playing under. That was my point of view in moving that motion —that and a protest against Auckland isolating itself on the rules. If Auckland likes to isolate itself on the rules, let it isolate itself on other things, too.” STIRRING UP TROUBLE Mr. McPhail said that he did not think there was enough at stake to warrant any stirring up of strife. Why should Canterbury be the union to stir up the trouble? Mr. Wilson: You have got half of the good people of Auckland behind you. Mr. McPhail: If, as you say, a referee cannot change his rules in one match, the British team will get a bud run in New Zealand next year. Mr. Wilson corrected Mr. McPhail on this point, saying that the only point in which New Zealand, apart from Auckland, differed from Great Britain so far as the rules of the game were concerned, was the kick-iiito-touch rule. In further argument, Mr. Wilson remarked: If Wellington or Southland wrote to us and asked us to appoint an outside referee for a match with that union, we would say at once, “Right,” and we would nominate outside referees, and there would be nothing more said. Mr. McPhail: But this is a different issue. Mr. Wilson: Yes, it’s Auckland. Mr. McPhail: Why should we take up this attitude for the sake of winning a game? Mr. Wilson replied that the attitude was not being taken up to win or lose a game, but to give the Canterbury men a reasonable chance of winning it. Then Mr. McPhail fired another shot. “It seems,” he said, “that we are trying to bring to bear something which the New Zealand Union is not prepared to do, and I do not think that it is our province.” A little later, he suggested that Canterbury was trying to dictate to Auckland. To this, Dr. W. S. Seed replied that Canterbury was not dictating. It was simply asking for a referee who would rule according to the rules under which Canterbury played. A motion that no further action be taken was defeated, and a motion that the New Zealand Rugby Union be asked to appoint the referee was carried. - The Auckland Union had suggested that if Canterbury still wanted an outside referee, it should ask the New Zealand body to make the appointment. Later in the* meeting, the suggestion made by the New Zealand Union about the appointment of outside referees to interprovincial games was mentioned again, and it was decided to ask the Taranaki and Wellington Unions to forward the names of outside referees for their matches with the Canterbury touring team.