"UNREASONABLE."

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1920, Page 10

"UNREASONABLE."

ENGLISH TAPER'S CRITICISM.

"OUR BRETHREN OF THE ANTIPODES CANNOT REALISE."

The criticism by an English journal of the New Zealand Rugby Union, has caused the Sydney Referee to make the following interesting comment :-r "It is difficult to pick up an English newspaper these days without running an eye over some expression of opinion jarring to Australian sportsmen, and baseless at that. Underlying these things is the assumption that all that emanates from the Mother Land in sport is the right and only thing. In some of the sporting papers there is never a suggestion that an effort j.as been made to see into the minds of Australian or New Zealand sportsmen. Conclusions are jumped at and ridiculous assertions made. These would not matter greatly, since those who control sport in its many ramifications in the Mother Land and the Austral countries are, for the greater part, men who recognise the prowess and the sportsmanship of one another, though they may not see eye to eye in many things; owing to a different outlook, the outgrowth of environment and climate.

"This leads us to the fact that in a recent issue the Athletic News went beyond reasonable criticism in discussing a rewnt meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Union at which sorre changes in the laws of its game were proposed. Among other things the Manchester paper said: "The position can be reviewed thus: The New Zealanders —or a ma-jority-of these delegates \to the union—desire to provide an entertainment which will make money; in this country the demand is for the maintenance of a recreation for players. The spectators and the toll are secondary considerations. Our brethren and cousins at the Antipodes cannot realise this essential difference."

"The brethren in the Antipodes realise the difference just as acutely as anyone in England. By hanging on to the skirts of the Old Land in football, the Rugby Union forces in the Antipodes have made

the task of the Northern Unionists much 'easier than it would have been had they fought hard and skilfully to preserve their game as one for the nation and the people, as differentiated from a restricted class. The war showed men what the backbone of the nation was and is. "If New Zealand keeps the control of the game in amateur hands and the control of the clubs and grounds in the same hands she has nothing to fear from professionalism, even of the Rugby League brand. In Sydney practically everyone realises that the League is tXe finer Rugby game, no matter how faddists might try to delude themselves that it isn't.

"Footballers across the Tasman owe nothing to England, or Ireland, or Scotland. They are under no obligation whatever to the English Rugby Union, whose attitude toward New Zealand Rugger has been quite wanting in sympathy. This is shown in more ways than one, not forgetting the passing over of New Zealand when the invitation to the second Springbok team to visit England was despatched a few years ago That was an insult. The All Blacks redeemed English Rugby, and for this they lave been critiaised most recklessly. Twelve long years and the work in the war have not softened some of the critics. Even David Gallagher, a New Zealand soldier in a British war before he became an All Black, had to fall on a battlefield in France before some men could write a good word for him. And Gallagher, captain of the All Blacks, was a man in every sense of the word."