Anti-All Black Movement

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32381, 21 August 1970, Page 21

Anti-All Black Movement

(TromV P McL£AN> CASE TOWN. There are regrettable signs of attempts in South Afriea to stir up anti-All Black feeling in the* Springbok team which will play the third international of the New Zealanders’ tour at Port Elizabeth next week. What is especially disturbing. however, was the decision of the Northern Transvaal Rugby Union to stage a trial as a curtain-raiser to a match between the visiting Paris University club team and Pretoria University. Ostensibly, the trial was to dispose of doubts in the minds of Northern Transvaal selectors about' me team they will soon be fielding in the Currie Cup. But uneasiness was aroused because the B team included three men—M. Myburgh. G.| Pitzer and W. Labuschagne—whose selection was seen as an attempt to discover their! qualifications for the Springbok team for the test About Myburgh. no exception could be taken. Hei played against the All Blacks; 10 years ago, and has been a! regular in South African test: teams tfrer since.

A huge man of about 18 stone, he won national renown a year or two ago by making a flying tackle of an armed and dangerous man. The act helped him to promotion to commissioned rank in the police. He announced his retire-!

Iment about the time the All Blacks arrived in South Africa, but he now says he wants to win back a place in the test team.. The implication is that he feels South ! Africa needs strong men to overcome the All Blacks. There are many reservations about Pitzer and Labuschagne. Pitzer has been I admired in some of the less salubrious parts of Rugby bei cause he is said to have the best short right in the game. He used this punch with telling effect against ' the ' i Frenchmen, Daga and Spangherro, and the English- : Iman, Pullin, when they were i in South Africa. Spanghero l went down as if hit by Rocky i (Marciano. Pitzer was supposed to be I injured during the Spring- i boks’ recent tour of the i

British Isles, and it was said he would not play again. However he has worked very hard to make himself fit.

Fit for'what? That is perhaps the question. Before the All Blacks arrived, Pitzer was quoted as saying: “South Africa could only win the series if the Springboks matched blow, for blow.”

Labuschagne’s qualificai tions; whatever they are, became dubious indeed when in a match between Northern Transvaal and Natal two days before the AU Blacks arrived in South Africa, he so severely injured a Natal player that he was suspended • for a month. ■

The referee did not see the blow. Labuschagne played out the game. Action was taken by the Northern Trans-

I vaal committee before and . after complaints by Natal. I The incident caused a : national scandal. The situation was not improved after ■ the All Blades had played i their first game when a ■ writer in the Rand “Daily i Mail” advocated that men like : Labuschagne should be delibi erately chosen by the Springboks.