Sports blues taken from two players

Press, 6 July 1985, Page 3

Sports blues taken from two players

Two members of the All Black team to tour South Africa, David Kirk, of Auckland, and Craig Green, of Canterbury, have had university sports blues taken from them because of their decision to go on the tour.' The annulments were announced yesterday by the general secretary of the New Zealand Universities Sports Union, Mr Stephen Tew. He said the sports union had a strong policy of opposing sports contact with South Africa because of its apartheid system. The policy, he said, dated back to 1981 when the union was admitted to the International Universities Sports Foundation. As a condition of entry the sports union ' was asked to show its opposition to rugby contact with South Africa. This policy was reaffirmed at the New Zea-

land body’s annual meeting last year, said Mr Tew. Green and Kirk said yesterday they had received letters telling them that the blues would be annulled if they went to South Africa. They were not upset by the decision. Kirk, who will take up a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University in Sep-

tember, said he would consider it an insult to his intelligence if people thought he had not given deep thought to the tour. Kirk was awarded his blue in rugby in 1984 when studying medicine at Otago University. Green’s blue, also in rugby, was bestowed in 1983 when he was a student at Lincoln College.