RUGBY’S NEW RULES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3503, 15 June 1920, Page 6

RUGBY’S NEW RULES.

A SOUTI-IERNER’S IMPRESSIONS.

OLD GAME SEVERELY LEFT.

CHRISTCHURCH, June 12‘

“Followers of Rugby football in Christchurch will remember J. Hurst, who played fi‘ve-eight for the Linwood senior team last‘ year,” so says the ;“Stal'.” “He is now in Auckland, 'playing in the back division of the College Rifles first-grade team. In a letter to a. friend in Christchurch he makes some interesting remarks about the game. as playedand Inana.g~ ed in Auckland, and also gives a good idea of tlle_att-itude of Auckland Rugbyites to the question of the proposed withdrawal of their new rules. Since going to Auckland he has formed a very poor opinion of the game as played in Canterbury,‘ which he considers a long way behind Auckland in several things.

“Commenting on the alteration of the rules, he says: ‘lf the new rules are withdrawn it means the doom of Rugby in Auckland at least; players here would not go back to the old game of playing touchline to waste ‘time or tolerate t:he wing forward coming round the scrum.’ After comparing newspaper reports on the games as played in Christchurch and Auckland, he considers that ‘the old [game is severely leftl’ ‘The new rules,’ he writes, ‘make the game attractive to the spectator, and worth while to the ‘player, and if they reverted to the old style, I, for one, would either turn it in altogether or go over to the League, and I guess I would not have that on my own. I am as staunch a"Rugbyite as anyone, and I can see nothing but good in the new game, and if you once played it you would be of the same opinion. Another thing I notice up here is that , they cater for the player first, and} they have not lost anything by doing so, and their programmes, ;‘-e a veVelation, the Zlress-ing-rewns are so clean and everything is convenient, showers, etc., ‘being provided, and two 5 ambplance men in attendance at eacht game. They are fast kicking out. deadheads on the centre. and alto-‘% gether things are far ahead of the} South.”