S.A. rugby visit still on

Press, 10 December 1981, Page 38

S.A. rugby visit still on

NZPA London A former British Lion and Irish rugby star, Syd Millar, is going ahead with plans to take an international rugby side to South Africa next year.

Mr Millar, who managed last year’s Lions tour of South Africa, said yesterday that he had undertaken to organise the team at the request of the Transvaal Rugby Union.

The main match would be to mark the opening of thenew Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg.

Mr Millar said that the tour was first mooted a year ago and was not a substitute for the cancelled Welsh tour. “The intention is that we take a European team — the best players from the four Home Unions and France — to play against Transvaal to celebrate the opening of the Ellis Park ground, a couple of other provincial games and another game at Ellis Park, which might be against a select side of some sort,” he said.

“It is not a substitute tour of any sort for the Welsh tour. This tour was mooted over a year ago when they were deciding how they would open Ellis Park and therefore as far as I am concerned I don’t know that any union would not want to provide a player or two for this.

“It is nothing to do with a major tour — it’s simply a game, as every country has

done at some stage, to celebrate the opening of a ground.” Mr Millar, who is president of the Freedom in Sport Organisation which has been promoting sports links with South Africa and advocates the free movement of sportsmen anywhere in the world, said the visit would be similar to one in 1977 when he took an international side to South Africa to mark the opening of the Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria. Players for the side will not be chosen until he has seen them in action in the coming Five Nation championship season. Meanwhile a millionaire Welsh businessman, Stuart Weaving, who had said he would recruit players in New Zealand, Australia and France for a “Jones” team rugby tour of South Africa if top Welsh players were not available, said he would not organise a visit unless he was invited by South African rugby officials. The South African Rugby Union’s president. Dr Danie Craven, was reported to have welcomed the offer of a private Welsh tour after the Welsh Rugby Union’s decision to call off next year’s tour, but Mr Weaving said he had heard later that South African authorities did not want a private tour. He said he would be willing to give his backing to Mr Millar’s team if it would help.