THE PRESS TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1986. The rebel rugby tour

Press, 15 April 1986, Page 16

THE PRESS TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1986. The rebel rugby tour

Successive New Zealand Governments have had difficulty in persuading Commonwealth countries that sports organisations in New Zealand are independent of the Government, and that the State cannot compel any sport to comply with Government policy on such matters as tours to South Africa. How much more difficult it will be for the New Zealand Rugby Football Union to persuade critics, at home and abroad, that in the last resort, it cannot control what some of its leading players do as individuals. If a rugby team appears in South Africa, made up of New Zealand players who were selected for last year’s aborted tour, rugby’s enthusiasts, as well as rugby’s critics, will regard them as an All Black side. If such a team beats the South Africans, on their own grounds and in matches controlled by South African referees, the occasion will be regarded as a triumph for New Zealand rugby.

The triumph would be short-lived. The Rugby Union is being forced into an intolerable position — damned if it attempts to discipline the players concerned, and damned if it does not. The damage to New Zealand may be almost as great as if a team had travelled under the auspices of the union. The Rugby Union council has still to face the awkward question: what happens to more than 20 of New Zealand’s leading players when they return from a series of private, unauthorised games in South Africa? Rugby itself could face another season of harassment and loss of sponsors and support. Other sports, not least those warming up for the Commonwealth Games in Scotland in July, may find they are victims of threats or actions from other members of the

Commonwealth. African States, especially, have not always been restrained or sensible in their attitudes when questions concerning South Africa are dragged into the politics of sport. There may well be high prices to pay in exchange for a demonstration that a group of New Zealanders can assert their undoubted right to travel abroad and play “social” sport of their choice.

A precedent of a kind exists for this rugby tour in the unofficial tour to South Africa last summer by a group of senior Australian cricketers. The Australian Cricket Board was quick to distance the sport’s organisation from the tour, and to impose penalties on the players who took part. They are unlikely to play again for Australia or, in some instances, for their home states and clubs.

The New Zealand Rugby Union will be reluctant to take such drastic steps, especially if many of the country’s leading players take the field in South Africa, and if there is no proof that players have breached their amateur status. Yet, unless the union acts, rugby — and other New Zealand sports — will be in for a hard time at events round the world.

Either way, the gloss will be lost from any successes on rugby fields in South Africa. That is not likely to stop many New Zealanders from following the rebel tour with much of the enthusiasm that would have been given to an official series of tests between the All Blacks and the Springboks. The more conspicuous this enthusiasm appears to be, the greater will be the difficulty in convincing critics around the world that many New Zealanders disown the rebel tour.