THE NORTHERN UNION GAME.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3524, 15 May 1912, Page 6

THE NORTHERN UNION GAME.

KA! PARA’S AND RYLAND’S INVi--7ATSONS. A CONTRADICTION FROM AUCKLAND. By Telegraph—Special Correspondent. AUCKLAND, May 14. A Press Association telegram from Gisborne stated that A. P. Kaipana and C. Ryland, the well-known Poverty Bay backs, had been inyited on behalf of the New Zealand League to join the team which will travel to Australia, next month. That such air invitation has been extended is emphatically denied by Mr. D. W. McLean (president of the N.Z. League). “No invitation of .that kind has been authorised or is likely to be authorised by the managing council of the League,” said Mr. McLean. “I am surei that no member of the Council has made-an offer of that kind individually. If a member has done so we would like him to resign. Such, methods of securing players are not countenanced by us. We get plenty without that, and arc out for. clean sport. We are not professionals. That is an old bogey.” Another member of the Council, who made a similar statement, added that the League 'had always set its face against getting recruits by promises of trips or other inducements of that kind. Apart from the. unsportsmanlike standpoint, such a policy would cause ill-feeling among the League’s

present players. Men who played the Northern Union game in New Zealand had to rest their claims to inclusion in representative teams on their merits as League players alone. This member of the Council also controverted statements which have been made that the payment of sums of money had been authorised to induce prominent Rugby players to 3 om the League-