The Rigour of the Game

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 893, 14 September 1956, Page 4

The Rigour of the Game

| N the past few months people fj in New Zealand must some- | times ‘have asked pertinent questions about international football. Test matches are exciting; even when the play is not spectacular, it is followed with such deep interest that the entire nation seems to pass through an emotional crisis. As entertaitiment for spectators and listeners, Test Rugby-whatever the result may be-is a huge success. But is it good for the players? Does it strengthen and improve the game? And what contribution does it make to international friendship and understanding? Now that the Springbok tour is over, these questions can be asked dispassionately, and can be answered with some reliance on evidence that is fresh in the memory. Incidents which became controversial may be reduced to their proper dimensions; but the circumstances in which they arose are still relevant. Rugby football is strongly competitive. The action is fast and vigorous, and it takes place before crowds who for eighty minutes are in a state of continuous excitement. Players are not allowed to forget that they are representing their countries. If in those countries Rugby is the national game, as it is in South Africa and New Zealand, a psychological factor increases the strain. A test match becomes a struggle in which the outcome is linked too closely to national prestige. It cannot be surprising if the mood of the game is sometimes gladiatorial. The encounter is approached in a merciless glare of publicity. During the Springbok tour, allegations of rough play and doubtful decisions were cabled to South Africa; extracts from these reports, and comments upon them, were cabled back for local publication; and in our own newspapers every aspect of the tour was under the closest scrutiny. All this was to be expected. The Springboks pushed other topics into the background} and if newspapers had had little

to say there would still have been avid discussion. An eavesdropper in public places would have noticed that some of the comment had little to do with football. Few of the’Springboks had English names; they spoke among themselves in Afrikaans; and they catne from a country whose racial policy is not liked in this Dominion. Their strongest link with New Zealanders was an ifiterest in football. They were a group of fine young men whose behaviour off the field was Unexceptionable. But athletes, who are sometimes desctibed rather foolishly as "ambassadors," want above all else to succeed in what they have come to do; and if they play hatd football (as they must in New Zealand, if they hope to win) the prejudice against "strangers" becomes a more noticeable part of the public attitude. Possibly it can be purged in a fierce tussle, but the tussle can also put too heavy a strain on the goodwill which these tours are supposed to promote. "The will to win," of which so much has been heard in recent months, cannot be expected to brighten the game. Tactics are evolved to exploit a team’s strength; and tactics used by the All Blacks, based on the supremacy of their forwards, seem likely to tighten the play for years to come. These tactics need not be condemned: they were justified in the circumstances, and the Springboks would have done exactly the same if it had suited them. /But the outlook for football, as a game that young men love to play and that older men love to watch, is not promising if the style of play is determined by the need to win or regain a "world" supremacy that is largely imaginary. Few people will want overseas tours to be abandoned. The results, however, will be less disappointing if we can be quite clear in our minds about the nature of the satisfactions these tours are expected to provide.