Coaches against tour

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 20

Coaches against tour

PA Palmerston North Manawatu secondary schools rugby coaches have voted by a big margin against this year’s proposed All Black tour of South Africa. The secretary of the Manawatu Secondary Schools Rugby Union, Mr Alan Coleman, has said that a card vote on the tour was about 45 to 50 against and 10 for. A motion opposing the tour was tabled at the March union meeting. Delegates spent, the next four weeks canvassing opinions from coaches at the union’s seven-member high schools.

Mr Coleman said there was no discussion when the motion was put to the vote at a meeting of about 10 delegates last week. Each delegate had a vote based on the number of rugby teams at the school he represented. Mr Coleman, said, however, he believed “recent events” in South Africa played little part in the outcome because of the four-week period involved. He said the union had received no official word yet of any school rugby coaches withdrawing from the game if the tour went c11163(L In a letter to the New

Zealand Rugby Union advising of the vote, Mr Coleman wrote: “I respectfully point out that this decision was not made lightly, nor on the spur of the moment, but was the result of a survey conducted during the last month among all secondary school rugby coaches in this area.” Meanwhile, the Y.W.C.A. has written to the Rugby Union calling on it to decline the invitation for an All Black team to tour South Africa. In the letter, the Y.W.C.A.’s president, Mrs Kay Weir, said, “Such a tour will give comfort and support to the perpetuators of the apartheid system.”