Green, Kirk ‘still have the blues’

Press, 13 November 1985, Page 80

Green, Kirk ‘still have the blues’

The case of the rebounding blues will drag on into 1986 for the All Black test backs, Craig Green and David Kirk. The New Zealand Universities’ Sports Union’s executive committee stripped Kirk and Green of their N.Z.U. blues for rugby when they were chosen for the All Black tour of South Africa.

Now they effectively have them back because of court proceedings started earlier by a Christchurch lawyer, Mr Peter Kirk, on behalf of his half-back brother. But the union’s executive will take the matter further with a fresh charge against the two sportsmen, at its first meeting next year. Kirk and Green have been given notice of the union’s allegation, said its general secretary, Mr Stephen Tew, of Wellington, yesterday. It is that by making themselves available and accepting selection for the tour of South Africa, they were in violation of the union’s general meeting policy, and thereby brought discredit to the blues award. The blues were awarded to Kirk and Green in June, but were purportedly annulled when the players were named in the All Black tour party. Although the team did not go to South Africa, the union decided not to restore the blues; the executive en-

dorsed the original decision. “The union executive has now acknowledged that its decision to annul the blues was illegal,” Peter Kirk said.

“The union has accepted that in accordance with established principles of administrative law, the decision was a nullity.” Mr Tew said the executive accepted that the decision might have been in breach of natural justice. “But our legal advice is that the whole matter can start afresh.”

Neither Kirk nor Green was given a chance to make submissions at the time of the decision. The executive admitted that it was at fault in not giving them a hearing, and decided to invite the two players to make written or oral submissions at a meeting this Saturday. But because the two have been on the All Black tour of Argentina, the executiveaccepted that they might not have had time to prepare a case. At the November 16 meeting the executive will set a date for its first meeting next year, at which the Kirk-Green affair will again be trundled out. In the meantime, as the result of Peter Kirk’s efforts, the two sportsmen will have the blues for at least another two or three months.