Insinuations’ against police

Press, 12 February 1982, Page 3

Insinuations’ against police

PA Wellington Indiscretions committed by the police during the Springbok tour of New Zealand had been used to discredit the force by some people for their own misguided purposes, said the chairman of the New Zealand Rugby Union, Mr C. A. Blazey. yesterday. ' In an interview on the eve of the Rugby Union council's first meeting for 1982, Mr Blazey said that the discipline exhibited by the police during the 56-day tour in the face of very extreme provocation was quite outstanding. “But when you have got about 5000 meh and women, and given the circumstances in which they had to operate, it was inevitable that somebody would do something which should not have been done,” he said. “What concerns me is that some people are now insinuating that our police force is no good because of the fact that charges have been laid against individual policemen. “They are good, jolly good." Mr Blazey said that he did not mean that people who had laid charges against members of the police resulting from the tour protests had not done so honestly. Nor would he give specific examples. “I am merely saying that there are some people who would very cheerfully- discredit the police if they could do so for their own misguided purposes,” he said. “This is sad.”

Mr Blazey, aged 72. a retired insurance company executive confirmed that he will be available for election to the Rugby Union council for the 26th time at the annual general meeting in Auckland on April 15. Mr Blazey indicated that one of his ambitions for 1982 is to eradicate as much as possible of the unpleasantness which surrounded the tour

It is a sentiment shared by the chairman of the union’s promotion and public relations sub-committee. Mr Russell Thomas, of Christchurch, who said recently that the focus of his committee's attention in 1982 would be aimed at primary and secondary schoolboys. Mr Blazey said some" New Zealanders believed that rugby would experience difficulty continuing to enlist the help of schoolteachers as coaches as a result of the tour. "But this is not a new problem.” he said. "It.started well before 1981. Nowadays young people have access to numerous activities and it is w’ell known that many teachers do not believe they can afford to indulge in after-school activities.

"They are just not getting paid for it and there are not as many teachers getting involved as there were in the coaching of sport in days gone by.” The R.F.U. was aware of this but the tour had forced rugby men to analyse the situation more closely.

"There are still many schoolteachers available to coach rugby and I do not think we should get carried away with statements which cannot be substantiated,” he said. "So far we have no evidence of schoolteachers pulling out of rugby coaching throughout the country as a result of the tour."

Commenting on the suggestion that anti-tour feeling had been translated into hardened attitudes against rugby generally. Mr Blazey conceded that' there were New Zealanders who had become disenchanted with the sport. “I am sure that the antirugbv feeling is not anything like as great as many people would have us believe," he said.