All Blacks’ hotel woes

Press, 23 July 1976, Page 24

All Blacks’ hotel woes

From T. P. McLEAN Durban It was surely out of ignorance that the New Zealand Rugby Union accepted the recommendations of the South African Rugby Board on accommodation for the All Blacks in Durban before tc morrow’s vital first test with the Springboks. The hotel the team has been placed in. the Eiangeni, a four-star place lying on Durban's famous ••Golden Mile,” in the midst of a busy traffic area and a series of tourist hotels. It compares indifferently, despite its star rating, with the limsianga Hotel, north of Durban, where the Springboks are situated and

which has a reputation for luxury.

First oft, the Elangeni is a huge place of 22 storeys which contains a vast number of bed and reception rooms. It collects draughts much in the manner of the legendary cave of Aeolian winds of ancient times.

All guests signing into the hotel are issued with a card without which it is impossible to obtain either a room key or any kind of service, dining or otherwise. Tourists troop in and out, many reaching for postcards they can ask the All Blacks to sign.

The hotel is a vast impersonal sort of place, with an atmosphere substantially at variance with that easy, cosy atmosphere so beneficial to

touring rugby teams on the eve of vital matches. The first samplings of the Elangeni’s food were not encouraging. One wit declared that the roast duck he had been served had flown thousands of miles more than even the most senior captain of the N.A.C. fleet, and others maintained that their mixed grills must have come from McMurdo Sound, so close to freezing point were their meals.

Just to make everyone thoroughly annoyed, much of the All Blacks’ luggage, including all their handgear, was left behind at Port Elizabeth and did not reach them until twilight. Thus, the first chance of a brisk run in Durban’s balmy winter sunshine was lost.

Meanwhile, the Springboks, who, according to the rules of the International Rugby Board, should not have had their first training run until yesterday morning, happily assembled at Umslanga at midday on Wednesday and without any baggage or accommodation problems had their first training gallop that afternoon.

Muted In the background, but only just, to the protesting noises made by the All Blacks were the keening cries raised by the touring reporters, who found themselves accommodated two to a room — no easy pairing for journalists working the oddest sort of hours and photographers using their bathrooms as darkrooms.