Players back from S.A. rugby trip

Press, 5 August 1983, Page 4

Players back from S.A. rugby trip

PA Auckland The All Black, Bernie Fraser, says he went to South Africa to have a good time, not to look for problems. “I would be on the next plane back (to South Africa) if there was a ticket for me,” he said.

Fraser, and his fellow All Blacks, Mark Shaw, Gary Knight, and John Ashworth, and two rugby officials returned to New Zealand yesterday after the invitation visit to the Western Province Rugby Union centenary matches. Seven All Blacks took part. Fraser, the dynamic Wellington winger, said at Auckland Airport that he had gone to South Africa with one thing in mind, that was to have a good time.

“I had a great time, most enjoyable” he said. “I had no intention of getting mixed up in anything political. “I did not go there to look for problems and I did not see any. There was no problems with the Coloureds or blacks who played in the matches; they trained with and used the same facilities as the white players.” Fraser said that he had been told that at other levels of football, the Coloureds and blacks were not discriminated against.

The other players made guarded comments. Shaw said that he was “tired and grumpy after a long flight and did not want to say anything now that I don’t really feel.”

Asked if he had seen anything which would affect his thinking on the apartheid question, Shaw said: “Certainly there are things to think about, but I can only begin appraising them when I have had a chance to relax.”

Knight said that he had nothing to say about the tour, accused the news media of creating any problems associated with apartheid, and denied that he had gone to South Africa with a closed mind. Ashworth avoided questions on the tour by saying that his impression of South Africa was that they had some tall men and some big locks. The two officials were Mr Tom Cunningham, of Wellington, an executive member of the New Zealand Rugby Union council, and another administrator, Mr Dick Littlejohn, of Whakatane. Mr Cunningham said his visit had been a private one, on personal invitation. “I found the Coloureds and blacks happy with their lot and I took time to visit the General Motors and Toyota plants in South Africa,” said Mr Cunningham. “The workers there all enjoyed the same facilities and opportunities, with pay the same for all those performing the same work. There was complete integration. “There were no restrictions on our seeing what we wanted to see,” said Mr Cunningham. He said that Errol Tobias, the Springbok first five-eighths and only black in the 1981 Springbok team which toured New Zealand, had played outstandingly during the centenary matches. Mr Cunningham had been impressed with the two 13-vear-old teams which played in a curtain raiser to one of the centenary matches. “One team was white and the other black,” he said. “They were the product of the Craven Week selections and they played the best football I have seen from boys of that age”