Boot wrangle subsides

Press, 14 June 1984, Page 40

Boot wrangle subsides

The All Blacks will not be booted out of the first rugby test at Lancaster Park this Saturday after all. The simmering controversy over whether the New Zealand players should be shod by Adidas or Laser has gone off the boil just when it threatened to obscure the fact that the All Blacks have a rather important match on their hands in two days.

But the matter has left a bad taste in the mouth, and it is fortunate that the New Zealand Rugby Union’s insistence that the players wear Adidas boots, and the reluctance of some members of the home side to comply, did not flare into open confrontation. The All Black captain, Andy Dalton, was clearly disturbed when he spoke of the wrangle last evening, but emphasised that he wanted the issue put behind the team, in the interests of the psychological build-up to the test.

“I think generally that the players are most unhappy at the way it’s been handled by Adidas and the New Zealand Rugby Union,” he said. “It appears that the union was pushed into a little bit of a corner by Adidas, insisting that the players wear their gear, although that has been denied.”

Dalton, who had tried a peace initiative in an effort to find a compromise, confirmed that there had been no change as far as the national body’s insistence that the players wear Adidas boots was concerned.

He said he had spoken to one or two members of both groups, but the position remained the same.

Dalton was at pains to put the matter in perspective, with the test against France looming large. The All Blacks realised that they had an extraordinarily testing assignment to face, and it would be folly to be distracted by

an issue such as the boots wrangle.

Asked if all the players would comply with the union’s ruling he replied “you’ll have to wait and see who wears what.”

Yesterday at training Andy Haden and Murray Mexted, two of the All Black forwards, made their point by each wearing one Laser boot and one Adidas one. Dalton wore a new pair of Adidas boots.

But boots were very personal items of equipment as far as players were concerned, and many of them preferred to discover by experience which type suited them best.

“I’m upset at the way the whole matter has been handled, especially with us going into an important test against a difficult opponent,” he said. All that remains now, it seems, is for the All Blacks to put their best feet forward.