POT CALLS THE KETTLE BLACK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 761, 6 September 1929, Page 6

POT CALLS THE KETTLE BLACK

SOME arrant humbug is being talked in the South about the amended rules at present in vogue in Auckland Rugby. It is blandly argued that there should be the same code of rules everywhere. The obvious reply to that is: "Why doesn’t the New Zealand Rugby Union set the example by falling into line with the rules sanctioned by the English Rugby Union? All this terrible trouble which Mr. S. S. Dean says Auckland has caused revolves round four - rules originally sanctioned by the N.Z.R.U. One provides for four quarter spells instead of two halves —nothing to impair a referee’s ability in that. Another provides for absolute free kicks—and a very good thing, too. The third calls on the referee to put the' ball in the serum —and judging by the way Donald was allowed to put the ball in the scrum in the Auckland-Wairarapa match, it would cut out a great deal of unfair tactics and ill-feeling in Rugby if the referee put the ball in. The only rule on which there is room for a sharp division of opinion is the imaginary line rule. That rule (not under the same name, of course, and in a limited sense) is applied by referees all the world over, as New Zealand wing-foi'wards know to their cost. If it applied only to the wing-forward, it would probably have the approval of 75 per cent, of New Zealand Rugby. In its wider application, however, it is a different matter. Such a sound judge as Mr. V. R. Meredith is strongly against the rule, and liis opinion is entitled to respect. The New Zealand Rugby Union’s peremptory demand for details of the amended rules in vogue in Auckland is hailed in certain circles in the South as “calling Auckland’s bluff.” That would be rather laughable were it not for the fact that the position has serious possibilities. Members of the New Zealand Rugby Union know as well as anybody what the Auckland rules are. They were originally sanctioned by the New Zealand Union, and according to Mr. Arthur Tilley, permission to play them has never been withdrawn.

Apart from the merits and demerits of the amended Auckland rules, it now rests with the Auckland Rugby Union to decide whether or not it is in the best interests, of the game to revert to the amended New Zealand rules. A Gilbertian touch might be introduced if the A.R.U. suggested that, on condition the rest of the Dominion abandons its amended rules, Auckland will do likewise!