TRIBUTE TO NEL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 300, 18 December 1937, Page 4

TRIBUTE TO NEL

REASONS FOR SPRINGBOKS’ SUCCESS DANIE CRAVEN’S OPINION INCIDENT IN "AFRIKAANS.” In an interview, on his return home, D. H. Craven, vice-captain of the Springbok Rugby team which toured New Zealand and Australia last seasons, said he was both glad and sorry to be home—glad to be back in Grahamstown but sorry to lose the companionship of his fellow members of the team.

“I shall miss those grand fellows,” he said. “All the time we were just like one big family.” The Springbok vice-captain attributed the success of the tour to the splendid team-spirit of the fellows and the great leadership of Philip Nel, whom he described as a very fine captain. Many lasting friendships were made on the tour, he added, especially in New Zealand, where the people were “mad on Rugby.” Craven found that many people in Australia and New Zealand were curiously ignorant of South Africa. Mar.y people had called at Durban and Capetown during the war and thought they knew South Africa from end to end. Because of that, one man surprised Craven by telling him he knew someAfrikaans. Craven asked him what he knew in Afrikaans and was told, “I know "Sakabona”—mean “Hullo,” an Anglicised kitchen variation of the Zulu word “Sbona.” Craven told of another amusing incident. When the team was leaving a New’ Zealand station by train, among the crowd seeing them off was a young woman who was chatting animatedly to a departing Springbok. A South African visitor at the station made a disparaging remark about the girl in Afrikaans. Judge the amazement of this critic when the girl turned and withered him with the scathing retort: “Aren’t his maimers also in Afrikaans?” She was a South African Rugby enthusiast visiting New Zealand. Craven said the • heard a good deal of Afrikaans in New Zealand and Australia, meeting a great many South African visitors i~ both countries. Fed Up With Rugby. Speaking generally, Craven said the team had become almost fed up with Rugby by the time the tour came to an end, for it had been very strenuous and they were tired out by playing 40 minutes each way. Lochner was also enthusiastic about the splendid friendships of the tour and though he was glad to be home at Kingswood College again, he said he would miss his team mates and the wonderful experiences of the tour. He also preferred New Zealand wits its wonderful scenery, mountains, lakes and snow.

Apart from the big coastal cities, the team did not see much of Australia.

The football played on the tour was wonderful and Lochner wished that South Africans generally could have seen it. They had had a wonderful tour and it was almost heart breaking to feel that it was all over.

C. P. Lochner, the back who showed such wonderful form in the final Test match, was most enthusiastic about the captaincy of Philip Nel. “He was a wonderful leader,” he said, “and deserves every praise. Our victories were due to his great leadership, which was one of the main reasons for the wonderful sucess of the tour.”