RUGBY PROBLEM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 4

RUGBY PROBLEM

AN IMPOSSIBLE LAW HOOKING BALL FROM SCRUM ENGLISH PRESIDENTS ADVICE The first official hint that the impossible hooking law is to be revised has come from Major-General B. A. Hill, president of the Rugby Union, says a writer in an English paper. He says: “Whether the law is good or bad it is subject to widely different interpretations by different players and different referees. This is not in the interests of the game. It is up to us to try and improve it, and you may be assured we are doing our best."

The mam trouble with scrumming, he added, was still that the ball was being kicked out o* the scrum before ever it was in. It was his conviction that it mi.st be with near-foot hooking. 'Take the law into your own hands.' be advised players. “Hook with the fat teat and you'll get a far better game."

Rugby football people have been waiting for such a statement. It has been known and has been proved by slow motion films that the law as it stands cannot be literally observed. The president was speaking at the Diamond Jubilee dinner of the Upper Clapton Rugby Football Club.