A defiant face from ‘rebels’

Press, 21 April 1986, Page 1

A defiant face from ‘rebels’

PA Wellington The "rebel” New Zealand rugby side put on a defiant face at the weekend as pressure to cancel the 12-match tour of South Africa mounted. The coach, Colin Meads, suggested that an early return home was out of the question, and Victor Simpson and Frank Shelford became instant “rebels” as the New Zealand Rugby Union’s telex statement saying the tour was “unacceptable” reached Johannesburg. “I cannot see any of us having to go home,” Mr Meads said in an interview with Radio New Zealand as his squad prepared to assume full strength in the lead-up to the tour-opener against the Junior Springboks on Wednesday.

The side will be bolstered within the next 24 hours by the arrival of eight of the nine All Blacks who have been playing in International Rugby Board matches in Britain.

At that stage, the 30 players are expected to meet to discuss the warning by the union chairman, Mr Ces Blazey, which, however, carried no suggestion of what punishment the "rebels” might expect. Andy Dalton, who led a World XV comprising players from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand to victory over a Five Nations XV at Twickenham and is expected to lead the “rebels,” emphatically denied a wavering of attitude among his party as it prepared to leave London. Dalton told the Johan-

nesburg “Sunday Times” that he rejected “the massive pressure to abort the tour.”

But it was Simpson and Shelford who sounded more than verbal defiance when they played for a World XV against Transvaal at Ellis Park without the permission of the Rugby Union. The Rugby Union Council had given permission to only seven All Blacks to play at the Transvaal celebrations, and Mr Blazey had indicated in his telex that any other players would be considered instant rebels the moment they walked on to the field.

Simpson and Shelford, however, gained some immediate rewards for their efforts as the New Zea-land-dominated World XV beat Transvaal 24-17, with Shelford scoring a try.

The South African Rugby Board president, Dr Danie Craven, who has yet to answer Mr Blazey’s call for an explanation on the background to the tour, has also given a measure of tentative blessing to the tour.

Dr Craven described himself as being in “a conflict situation” with the positive side being the chance for the world’s two greatest rugby nations to do battle.

He did not, he said, want to be an enemy of the New Zealand Rugby Union, but he believed in the cause of the “rebels.”

“Here is a country Isolated and now they get an opportunity of making contact with the All Blacks. That to us is the be all of rugby,” Dr Craven said.