Springbok Invitation “Europeans Only”

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30943, 27 December 1965, Page 13

Springbok Invitation “Europeans Only”

SX.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright)

CAPE TOWN.

. Xb e P resi£ lent of the South African Rugby Board (Dr. Dame Craven) said on Friday that his board extended an invitation to the New Zealand Rugby Council to send a team to tour South Africa m 1967 “on the same basis as before.”

Dr. Craven had been asked to comment on a report that the New Zealand authorities had been asked to send an “all-white” Rugby team to the republic in 1967. He refused to comment fur-| ther on the matter. The chairman of the New Zealand Rugby Union (Mr Tom Morrison) said in Wellington that the invitation had arrived, reports the New Zealand Press Association. It could be inferred that the invitation was for a “Europeans only” team, said Mr Morrison.

“The invitation will be discussed fully at the next meeting of our council in Wellington on February 25 and a statement released then,” said Mr Morrison. He said he was “more than disappointed” with the invitation.

"Earlier, I had hoped for a different type of invitation,” Mr Morrison said, “but it had become obvious from the recent statement by various South African Ministers that it would probably be on the same basis as in the past.” Mr Morrison would not comment on the possible effect of the South African board’s invitation on the 1967 All Blacks tour.

The president of the New Zealand Rugby Union (Mr T. H. Pearce) said in Auckland that he was not surprised at the form of the invitation. "But this conditional invitation is the result of Government prohibition—not Rugby prohibition, ’ he said.

"As I said when I returned from South Africa last week. Dr. Danie Craven has

got himself very much off side with the Government in his efforts to achieve a satisfactory solution to the 1967 tour.” Mr Pearce said he did not wish to give any personal view on the invitation.

Asked what he thought of a suggestion that the tour be postponed from 1967 to 1970, when many of the present problems could be overcome, Mr Pearce said: “A postpone-

ment must be the last alternative.

“So many adjustments in the international tour rota would be involved that it is not a thing that we could do with a click of the fingers. “It would be more simple to cancel the tour than to postpone it. “If we don’t play South Africa other countries will still want to.”