Welsh support S.A. tours

Press, 4 June 1984, Page 13

Welsh support S.A. tours

NZPA staff correspondent London The Welsh Rugby Union has voted by an overwhelming five to one majority in favour of retaining playing links with South Africa. A total of 378 delegates representing the union’s 200 affiliated clubs took just 45 minutes to debate the issue at a special meeting at Port Talbot at the week-end. They then voted by 306 to 62 with 10 abstentions to support a resolution that “the W.R.U. shall continue to maintain its playing links with the South African Rugby Board." The secretary of the Welsh union, Ray Williams, said that the resumption of tours to and from South Africa would be a matter for the union committee to decide "in the light of the climate at the time.” “There is no fixture scheduled on the international touring programme at the moment,” he said. The special meeting was called because the W.R.U. committee was split down the middle on the South African question and wished “to test Welsh public opinion.”

The committee voted by a narrow majority to cancel a tour to South Africa in 1982 after pressure from the British Government. "You can assume after the voting today that we took a wrong decision,” said the president of the Welsh union. Eirwyn Davies. He attributed the size of the pro-South Africa vote to “reactions to the pressure that has been put on us by politicians." The W.R.U. vote follows hard on the heels of a 44-6 vote by the English Rugby Union committee in favour of touring South Africa. It is certain to incense Welsh anti-apartheid campaigners who brought the issue to the boil earlier this year when a South African schoolboys side toured the principality and three South Africans were invited to play for a World XV against Wales at Cardiff. The anti-apartheid lobby has a strong ally in the MidGlamorgan County Council who may now withdraw the use of hundreds of pitches to clubs attached to the W.R.U., a policy which could be copied by other Labourcontrolled councils.