page 13

The Decadence of Rugby.

There can be little doubt that the public mind is seriously exercised at the present time as to whether Rugby Football— Rugby as she is played—has, after all, that clean and wholesome influence on the life of the people of our country which its proud position as the "national" game gives us the right to expect. Some, indeed, have arrived at the conclusion that Rugby is a game which lends itself entirely to the satisfaction of the more brutal instincts of mankind; that the players are "roughs" who are ever ready to take advantage of their opportunities; and that the "barrackers" are removed only in dress and language from the crowd which thronged the amphitheatre on a Roman holiday. Such conclusions are not likely to commend themselves to us as fair and just, but I am led to pen these lines because I believe that they contain an element of truth and because I believe that unless the truth is promptly recognised by the players themselves there is a grave danger that one of the best of all winter games, New Zealand's national game, will lose its hold upon those whose support alone makes the game worth playing. For there are circumstances in which the best of games may lose its worth and find the wages of sin in death. If football, were to a great extent, in the hands of men to whom victory was dearer than fair-play—if it did excite the baser impulses of the mob at the expense of its finer feelings—the case for its extermination would be complete.

That Rugby is a game which lends itself to the man who is willing to scheme for a mean advantage need not be disputed. It is of the essence of Rugby rules that a player may tackle and throw an adversary who has the ball, and the referee has about as much chance with the man who exceeds the limits of necessary violence as a policeman has with a motorcar. But that is only the other side of the fact that Rugby football gives to the clean and generous player an opportunity for self-control and self-restraint; gives an opportunity for displaying those qualities which—without any ostensible display of generosity—give men page 14 the joy they feel when they are playing with those who would scorn to take a mean advantage, who play the game because they love it, because it is healthy, vigorous, and full of "that stern joy which warriors feel in foeman worthy of their steel." This is the true spirit of Rugby—the spirit which makes a school or college match a dream beside the nightmare of some of our cup fixtures.

With a game which has its possibilities both for good and evil, the quality of the game must necessarily depend upon the character of the players. I do not intend to pile up evidence to show that the class of men who play now is lower than it was ten years ago. I am not in a position to make a clear and satisfactory comparison, though it would seem a fair inference that other games such as hockey, which have developed strongly of late years, have deprived Rugby of many players of the desirable stamp. But the fact that every Rugby union in the colony has been out on a crusade against "foul" play and "rough" play tells plainly enough that there is ground for alarm. A few weeks ago a mass meeting was held in the Garrison Hall at Dunedin which was described in the editorial columns of the Christchurch "Press" as "in some respects one of the most remarkable that has ever taken place in the colony." Among the speakers were an ex-president of the Otago Rugby Union and a vice-president of the Otago Football Association. The object of the gathering was to appeal in the name of moral and physical health for the suppression of "anything, such as gambling, foul play, drinking, that tended to lower and degrade manly sport." Thus there is a double crusade inside and outside of the Rugby Unions and the fact that such crusades are necessary is doing much to injure the game in the eyes of the public.

This agitation, however, may be founded on the actions of a few men whose actions give a bad name to the game they disgrace. This is, I believe, the case. But it must be remembered that one or two men can so act that by half-time both sides are playing with clenched teeth and a reckless disregard of the weather. One gross piece of brutality or unfairness unseen by the referee and condoned by the offending side will often lend its tone to the whole game. Not that a clean side will pay back in kind the blows it receives, but the game ceases to be friendly and mutual distrust and suspicion replace the confidence which true sport should engender, and everything that makes the game worth playing, except the endurance and the skill, is swept away. I should like to know how many men who have played Senior Cup football in Wellington this year page 15 have gained real wholesome pleasure from one half of the matches. If there are any such I should be inclined to deny their claim to the possession of liner instincts. Is it possible to endure the grumbling which occurs when the referee makes a mistake, the bickering which follows a piece of play the other side does not understand, the talking of the other side, and, bitterest of all, the talking of your own side, and still to labour under the delusion that you are enjoying yourself.

The talk, however, is but one of the expressions of an unhealthy spirit. Even in representative football one sees such a thing as a player deliberately playing the man before he has touched the ball. In the Auckland-Wellington match this year on several occasions I distinctly saw a man on the line-out pushed when he was about to jump for the ball. When the ball is being placed, as from a mark, it is a common thing to see men endeavouring to improve on the position law and good faith have assigned to them. Tripping and other branches of the obstruction game are more apt to be done on the spur of the moment but it is hard to make excuses for the man who screws your neck in the obscurity of a rough-and-tumble.

My contention is, then, that there is in Rugby a class of play which should be exterminated as lacking that so essential sang froid. How is this extermination to be brought about? That is the question which has been often discussed and on which, perhaps, little new light can be thrown. But the question is destined to be discussed many times again before Rugby is regenerated or extinct. My first conviction on the subject is that the "wing-forward" game should be abolished. A good deal of the ill-feeling which characterises some football matches, begins, I believe on the wings. Wing-forwards do not in my opinion add anything to the game as a game, and they give an opportunity for "scrapping" and "pointing" which is almost inevitable in what is at best licensed obstruction.

My next suggestion is based on the conviction that most of the rough and foul play is due to a few men, and that the other members of the teams for which they play could tell, before going on the field, which men would do the mischief on the smallest provocation; which men would play in that reckless spirit which defies skill and merely damages the other side. Now if it is true that these men are few and well known to their own side, is it not fair and reasonable to penalize the side which takes advantage of such doubtful service? There is no need here to detail a scheme, but it seems to me that if, when a man was page 16 warned or turned off the field his side were compelled to lose a fraction of a Championship point, there would be a moral force on the side of reform which might work wonders. It might be urged that if such a scheme were in force the team which won the most matches might not take the Championship. That is just what is wanted. We think too much of Championship points and too little of the game, forgetting that the ultimate and true judgment on football will rest, not upon matches won, but upon manhood achieved. A foul player may escape the referee for a long time and his side may owe much spurious success to his efforts—but the team, if it is (it to play the game at all, should hold itself disgraced by the inclusion of such a man. A true sportsman ever feels the bitterest thrust, not in the foul play of his opponent's side, but in the foul play of his own.

The question of giving touch-judges the power of reporting rough play to the referee has been much discussed. Considering the fact that both players and public demand a cleaner game and that the cunning of the culprits is most often able to elude the referee, I am inclined to believe that power ought to be given to the touch-judges to report cases in which one player actually strikes or kicks another. Such cases are not frequent, but when they occur they are a public scandal. The touch-judge would not be required to exercise much judgment, but merely to state a straight-out question of fact. The real difficulty in cases of this description is that they often take place when the ball has gone far away and the referee, who is following the ball, has no chance of detecting them.

There is one more suggestion I might make. 'Tis a day of trophies, souvenirs, pots, or whatever they may be called, and they are mostly too expensive. But if there is one branch of sport which has never been encouraged in this manner it is "clean Rugby." Personally, I would rather have a badge for playing in the team which played most good-naturedly and talked least than for playing in the champion team. There might be much competition for the "booby" if such a prize were offered, but it would perhaps serve the purpose of proclaiming to players and public that the Rugby Union was doing something more practical than talking. It is of course easy to make suggestions and difficult to put suggestions into practical shape. It is easy to overlook the fact that a man cannot be turned into a sportsman by Rugby Union rules. But something may conceivably be done to suppress "Hooliganism," and if each team could be made to feel its true responsibility for using vicious and reckless men a step forward would be made. page 17 Rough play might be stopped at the outset. Above all, if the teams were to set out with the conviction that the player who played the man instead of the ball, who would take an unfair advantage, was not only an enemy of the opposing but also of his own side, Rugby would still give the old delight, would still be the joy of the "superannuated."

Unless Rugby can be made pleasurable it must decline, Its recruits will drop off and hockey, tennis, or association will reap the benefit. For Rugby demands some compensations. It requires the most rigorous training, it demands every energy, and training and energy can be turned to better account elsewhere than in a game which has Lost its gamesomeness. The love of championship points may supply impetus enough for some spirits, but they are the bold spirits who want suppressing to almost any extent. Their motto is "win, honestly if you can—only win." It is interesting to know that years ago there was a great fight for the abolition of championship matches owing to their bad influence on the game. While we recognise them as a necessary evil, their evil quality should be borne in mind, and if possible, counteracted.

I have no time to deal with the drinking and gambling which is said to accompany football. If this drinking does follow a match the wholesomeness of the sport is, of course, utterly wasted on the men. To the extent that the gambling goes on the sport is polluted. It may certainly be said that a governing body which allows its programmes to be adorned with advertisements of "Turf Accountants" is not a credit either to sport or society. We have seen the effect of this pollution in other games and every true friend of Rugby will to the extent of his power, endeavour to save the good old game from these too extraneous stains.

I suggested at the beginning that football is sometimes judged by its friends. In truth no game had ever more reason to pray for deliverance from its friends than football in Wellington. I heard an old representative player declare, after witnessing the Auckland-Wellington match this year, that he had seen his last football match. If the game, he said, had that effect upon the crowd, the less it was encouraged the better. And indeed the Wellington crowd—or rather, sections of it—gave an exhibition of ungenerous and unfair and inhospitable partiality which was utterly distressing. Some men were so carried away by their discreditable bias that they hooted an Auckland player when he was able to take the field after an accident. What football wants is not the hoodlum who smokes page 18 cigarettes on the bank and howls down the side he does not happen to support, but the man who has the spirit of sportsmanship, who believes in its highest traditions, and can see the merit of an opponent's play.

But I have rambled on too long. The game which is played so cleanly and well at our public schools is not destined to extinction though it may have to lace troublous times. "There be some sports are painful," said Ferdinand "and their labour delight in them sets off." It takes a great game to support the pain and labour of football, and the nation and the race are fortunate that they are not yet reduced entirely to parlour games. Memory is apt to linger on the trials and labours which are past, and among these none are dearer to the veteran than the hard-fought battles of the Rugby field. No struggles are harder or more dear than those fought for school and college. No memories are brighter than those which surround the fields on which we strove for an honour which was not our own. That honour can only remain untarnished and bright by each man striving to maintain the highest traditions of the game. Let our College Club then be one which shall in the future be respected, if not because it is strong yet because it is plucky, clean, and staunch to the referee.

page break