McCormick’s View Of Nomis Incident

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 14

McCormick’s View Of Nomis Incident

(From

T. P. McLEAN)

DURBAN. ,. 3 Now that Dr Danie Craven has initiated a white* wash the second test” campaign, pretty well everything published about that unfortunate affair between the All Blacks and the Springboks at Newlands is under suspicion.

But there is one man, an expert witness who offers proof that the tackle which laid out the Springbok wing, S. H. Nomis, and which has been the principal point of discussion, was not made according to Hoyle.

dangerous. Nomis had to be stopped. I might even have gone as far as to foot-trip him. As it was I clocked him, accidentally I might say, with my left elbow right on the point of it” McCormick does not exetise his actions. I dp not think there are any grounds for excusing it As a player of exceptional natural Rugby intelligence, McCormick appreciated that if Nomis chased his kick ahead he might have got a favourable bounce and scored. Had

he done so the All Blacks were beaten. Hence the stoj» page. , McCormick admits he has suffered in his mind since the incident “I was really brassed off last week,” he said. , Normally he takes no notice of crowds, favourable or un l favourable, and steadfastly goes on with his own type of game. , But at Newlands last Saturday he winced at made as he was taking kicks at goal within putting distance of spectators. "Have you brought your knuckle-duatera?” waa » favoured remark made to him. During the week McCormick received two poison-pen letter/ and threw them both away. He vigorously denies a rumour that he was approached in a hotel bar by four South Africans who wanted to take him outside and assault him. The worries affected his goalkicking and he was delighted when on Wednesday the All Black captain, B. J. Lochore, substituted B. G. Williams, who, picked goals from all over the place. "The blokes in the team understand," McCormick said, “they couldn’t have been better.” , "As it is my timing was affected. I’ve even been lying the ball down instead of standing it up as I always have done and this hasn’t helped me. "In The Mind” "There is only one thing to do and that’s to keep on going. After all, I've been in this sort of patch before. In 1966 I had a terrible year. I couldn’t kick a thing. I stretched to get a hundred points. > "Normally I don't practise goal-kicking at all. 1 just step out in a match and bang away. Things usually go pretty well. In this tour I am kicking all the time, maybe that hasn’t helped. It's alt in the mind. "I’d be really worried it I thought my field play was , falling off, but that seems to me to be pretty right. After Williams took over the kicking I round I was running much more freely and better.” McCormick regards the south African tour as offering harder Rugby than the tour of the British Isles. The South Africans were ■ tougher in their approach to I the game, he said.

“I hit him,” said the All Black full-back, W. F. McCormick. “Of course I never in< tended to knock his teeth out “But the situation was very