WALLABIES SAY “NEVER AGAIN” Rugby Players To Boycott S.A. Tours

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32303, 22 May 1970, Page 15

WALLABIES SAY “NEVER AGAIN” Rugby Players To Boycott S.A. Tours

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

SYDNEY.

Three members of the Australian Rugby team in South Africa last winter have declared they would not play against the Springboks again while the Government policy of apartheid is maintained.

A fourth said he would not insist on a change in the whole political structure before playing against South Africa, but would only play against a team truly representative of the whole country.

The four Wallabies are Barry McDonald. James Roxburgh, Paul Darveniza, and Bruce Taafe, and they gave their views on South African sport and apartheid in an interview with Mr G. Robertson, a Sydney law graduate.

The four players are all in their twenties. Darveniza is a doctor, McDonald is in real estate, Taafe is a systems analyst, and Roxburgh is studying law at Sydney University. The interview, taken from a coming edition of “Blackacre” journal of the Sydney University Law Society, covers almost a full page in the “Australian” yesterday.. Political Weapon Among the questions put to the players by Mi- Robertson was one that asked them whether, having spent three months touring the country, Australia should send a touring team to South Africa again. McDonald said: “I say definitely not. The impression we give by doing this —or the impression the South African press and public officials give for us—is that we agree with apartheid. We officially endorse racist sport.”

Sport was used in South Africa as a major political weapon, McDonald added. Bysending teams, Australia was strengthening the hands of the supporters of apartheid.

Darvenza said: “I will not play against South Africa again. We should not send teams to South Africa, but if they are officially invited we should not condemn them for coming. But for myself. I will play against South Africa neither here nor in their own country.”

Wellington Student

Taafe, who learnt his Rugby as a schoolboy in Wellington, said he could play against South Africa again but only against a truly representative side. “I would not insist on a change in the whole political structure. But I would insist or. a democratic selection of team, members, black or white, from all over the country.” Roxburgh said that the problem with Taafe’s view was that there was simply no equality of opportunity to participate in Rugby. Most Bantus could not afford a pair of football boots anyway.

“There are just no preconditions. no machinery, to allow a representative selection.

“I agree with Barry and Paul—l could not play South Africa again while apartheid is a way of life in that country.” Mixed Concepts Roxburgh said he could not distinguish between the politics and the sport; South Africa certainly did not. “It was the first to mix the two concepts, to run its sport as a political venture,” he added. Mr Robertson asked the four players if they felt the warmth of their welcome in South Africa had a dimension beyond Rugby. Taafe and McDonald said yes, definitely, and Roxburgh said that everywhere the team went local mayors would remark at receptions how South Africa and Australia were two great countries with so much in common. “There is no doubt at all,” Roxburgh said, “that South African officials made use of the tour on this propaganda level and, of course, the infuriating thing was that we had to stand mum. We were guests in the country, accepting its hospitality, so our tongues were tied.”

Myth Of Supremacy

Mr Robertson asked about the argument that by sending teams to South Africa, people there were brought into' contact with more civilised values and given an example of broadmindedness that South Africa might be encouraged to follow. Darveniza said the contrary was true. International sport, and particularly victory in such sport, was used to bolster the “white supremacy” myth. “Our whole trip was organised by the South Africans in such a way that it emphasised that representative international sport was the pre-

rogative of the whites, that the non-whites were inferior persons to be kept away from us and allowed small blocks of seats in unfavourable positions, and that Australia, as a sporting nation, endorsed all of this,” Darveniza said. Pawns In Game Taafe told the interviewer that sport was such a “big thing” in South Africa, complete isolation in sport would force the country to reconstruct the whole apartheid system. , “A total boycott would boost the moral of the blacks tremendously,” McDonald said. Darveniza said he did not think the Australian Rugby Board realised how Australian tours were used for proapartheid propaganda purposes—“how we become pawns in a bigger game of international politics.” The interview also brought out that the players believed at least five members of the team were at times shadowed and spied on by South African security police.