All Blacks available to tour South Africa

Press, 1 July 1985, Page 1

All Blacks available to tour South Africa

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STEVE McMORRAN

NZPA staff correspondent Auckland The All Black second five-eighths, Warwick Taylor, is available for this year’s rugby tour of South Africa although his participation will probably cost him his job. All 21 All Blacks engaged in Saturday’s Bledisloe Cup test against Australia and in earlier tests against England are available to tour the republic, said the team manager, Mr Dick Littlejohn, yesterday.

Discussion of the tour among New Zealand players had been embargoed until yesterday to allow them to concentrate fully on their early season matches. The players, notably Taylor and his Canterbury teammates, Wayne Smith and Jock

Hobbs, who had expressed reservations about their availability to tour, faced up to the tour question for the first time yesterday, and announced their availability at a press conference yesterday morning. Taylor, for professional reasons, faced a difficult decision but elected to tour and be damned. Hobbs and Smith weighed personal and moral considerations before announcing their intention to join Taylor if selected. Taylor, aged 25, a married man with young children, may become the most immediate victim of action by Government departments against staff members selected for the tour. He has been told in a letter from the Education Department that his job as

a physical education teacher at Christchurch’s Burnside High School and two years training could be jeopardised by his decision to tour.

“The fact that I could lose my job never really hit home until recently,” Taylor said. “I was aware of talk about action against school teachers who toured but I never took it seriously until a letter detailing the board’s directive arrived at school.

“I love my job. Burnside is a wonderful place to work and I would be really disappointed if I lost my position there. But I’ve decided that this tour is something I want to do. I’ve considered the cost to my family and I’ve decided that I will tour.”

Taylor doesn’t expect to return from South Africa to closed doors in the teaching profession. He hopes on his return, if he does lose his job, to be able to quickly find new employment.

“I would love to be able to go back to Burnside but that is something I’ll face in the future.”

Smith faced the moral issues connected to the tour before deciding that he also will be available for selection.

“I’ve thought a lot about the tour issue,” he said. “I’ve decided that contact with South Africa is a better policy than isolation.” Hobbs, a Christchurch barrister, weighed the moral issues along with his responsibilities to his family and his legal practice before deciding to make himself available.

He admitted, like Smith and Taylor, that the issue was a difficult one which he had faced fully for the first time after Saturday’s test. “I am available,” he said. “I’ve considered the tour question and all that it involves at great length.

Having done that I’ve decided I’m available. “A tour involving 10 weeks away from home always raises questions about work commitments and family and South Africa poses extra questions. “The question I’ve considered is whether contact is the best policy and I’ve come to the conclusion that hypocritical and piecemeal isolation is not beneficial. I believe if South Africa is isolated it will turn inwards on itself and the situation will worsen. “I think there’s more benefit in contact than there is in selective finger pointing.”

Littlejohn, in announcing the availability of every member of his current squad of 21, said he knew of no players outside the squad and in line for selection who had made themselves unavailable.

He hoped that now the players’ decisions had been made they would not be the victims of harasment from people opposed to the tour. Hobbs added: “No doubt many people will disagree with our decision. Perhaps some people were hoping we wouldn’t go but I would hope they will respect our decision and we respect their opposition.” 1