Meads To Stay; Team Morale Factor

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32351, 17 July 1970, Page 15

Meads To Stay; Team Morale Factor

(From T. P. McLEAN) BLOEMFONTEIN. Out of a belief, so it is understood, that it ought to give its greatest player a chance to play his fiftieth test match, the All Black tour committee has decided not to ask for a replacement for C. E. Meads. The rumour is strong that the man who spoke most passionately for this was the coach (Mr I. M. Vodanovich), who, like his celebrated predecessor in office, Mr F. R. Allen, has discovered that, on tour, there are in Meads such exceptional qualities of character and fortitude that his presence strengthens an entire team.

The decision was made by the tour committee after the team manager (Mr R. L. Burk) had consulted by telephone with the chairman of the New Zealand Rugby Union (Mr A. A. Sullivan). The latter, it seems, was under siege from newspapers

and radio even more than was Mr Burk is Bloemfontein. So, the committee has no plans to approach the South African Rugby Board because it ought not to take any step which might prejudice the chance of Meads once more playing before the tour is done.

One wonders if the committee might not be baying at the moon in its decision, much as one sympathises with it

It is understood that the committee has been told there is almost no chance of Meads’s broken arm recovering inside eight weeks, and that even if it were to be mended sooner. Meads would still have to spend some time recovering strength in the arm and fingers. This advice has come from experts on sports injuries. It is to be tested next week

when the team is at Pretoria preparing for the first test. Meads is to be examined by a professor at the Pretoria Medical School, who has the reputation of being the most expert of all South African orthopaedists. Meads has yielded so far to the intense pressure of his camrades on the tour committee and in the team itself to the urgent request that he remain for the tour, whether or not he has a chance of playing. But he said yesterday that he had merely put the thought aside for the time being. “I will think a bit later about whether to go home,” he said. “Having this arm hanging round like a ton weight is a nuisance.

“But what cheeses me off most is that up till the time I got the knock, I- was feeling so fit and, so it seemed to me, playing so well. Then for this to happen—do you wonder that I am not exactly jumping for joy?”