BOOKSHELF

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 20

BOOKSHELF

In spite of the pleas of many people to let the Cavaliers issue die a natural death, the secretly arranged tour of South Africa by a rebel New Zealand rugby team seldom stayed away from sports headlines for long.

The New Zealand Rugby Union’s investigations into the clandestine affair revealed no startling revelations, but journalists seemed to unearth material from people involved in the South African jaunt which rekindled the spark before it ever became extinguished. The tour is given extensive coverage in the sixteenth edition of the New Zealand Rugby Annual (Moa Publications; 173 p.p. $27.95) edited, as it has been since its inception in 1971, by Bob Howitt. Howitt devotes a good deal of his season’s review to the problems and pressures brought about by the Cavaliers tour. He is unimpressed by the actions taken by the then New Zealand rugby boss, Ces Blazey, upon learning of the tour. Why did not Blazey call an emergency meeting of the national council or why did he not issue an ultimatum to the players? asks Howitt. Howitt questions why Blazey did not make a similar threatening statement as delivered by the French head, Albert Ferrasse, when rumours started about other countries, including France, making rebel

tours. Said Ferrasse: “Any players who go to South Africa as rebels need not bother coming back.” Howitt says that it mattered not that South Africa was the venue. “Their (the Cavaliers) most heinous transgression was that they conspired to tour overseas without notifying their governing body, as they are required to do, and without seeking a clearance. “Blazey individually, or the council collectively, should have taken forthright action. The players, assembled as they were in Johannesburg, should have been notified before the first match at Ellis Park kicked off what the penalty would be should they proceed with the tour. “Be it a month’s suspension, a year’s, or life, the N.Z.R.F.U. would have been seen to take decisive action.

“The public would have admired such forthrightness, the Cavaliers would have known exactly where they stood and the N.Z.R.F.U. would unquestionably have been spared so much of the endless agony which has ensued.”

Australia’s highly successful tour of New Zealand, which resulted in the Bledisloe Cup returning with the Wallabies, who had their first test series win in the country since 1949, is well documented as are the fleeting visit by a disappointing French side, the

national championship games in the three divisions, and Auckland’s retention of the famed log o’ wood.

The inaugural South Pacific championship, won by Canterbury, receives only scant coverage, but Canterbury followers are well served by the accounts of its first division record, its outstanding win against Australia and its gallant, but unsuccessful bid to lift the Ranfurly Shield. A few eyebrows might be raised, though, by the final reference in the shield report of the Canterbury versus Auckland match. lt states that Canterbury’s best players were the line-out men, Albert Anderson and Chris Earl. Chris Earl’s big brother, Andy, might feel somewhat aggrieved.

No South Island players was considered worthy enough to rate in Howitt’s five players of the year. He plumps for the Auckland pair, Steve McDowell and John Kirwan, Wellington’s Kevin Boroevich and John Gallagher, and the dashing North Harbour first five-eighths, Frano Botica, who was also voted New Zealand’s “rugby player of the year.”

The Annual, liberally illustrated with quality expressive pictures, should again provide rugby enthusiasts with plenty of pleasurable reading over the holiday period. R.L.S.