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A Century of Magic

This month New Zealand Maori will celebrate their centenary. LINDSAY KNIGHT looks back on the last 100 years and pays tribute to what has been a critical and vibrant component of the national game.

Tuesday, 08 June 2010

Lindsay Knight

While it is inevitable, given its importance and the many momentous occasions it has generated, it would be a pity if this month’s celebration of a centenary of New Zealand Maori rugby was totally overshadowed by its connection with South Africa.

Already two major issues have been thrown up because of the Maori-South African relationship. One is the call for a formal apology to be issued to the families of those many fine Maori players, the likes of George Nepia, Jimmy Mill, Johnny Smith and Pat Walsh, who in 1928, 1949 and 1960 were excluded from touring South Africa with All Black sides.

The other is the extraordinary claim by one of the team, Muru Walters, that before playing the Springboks at Eden Park in 1956 the players were told by a pakeha Minister of Maori Affairs that they had to lose the match.

A huge measure of controversy and even acrimony has always accompanied, of course, Maori-Springboks rugby. That started from the very first game at Napier’s McLean Park when after a fiery match the Springboks secured a win by only 9-8. Torrid as the match had been, the aftermath was even more sensational.

One of the journalists with the Springboks sent a dispatch to South Africa which was blatantly racist and highly offensive. The gist of his cable was that it had been a most unfortunate match and the Springboks had been disgusted that European spectators had cheered a band of natives to beat members of their own race.

Obviously, when the cable was released, illegally it must be said, to the local newspaper it created a huge storm, which may have been a reason why there was no Maori match on the itinerary when next the Springboks toured New Zealand in 1937.

Not until 1956 did the Springboks and Maori meet again and that resulted in a 37-nil capitulation by the Maori side. The margin of that defeat left little room for debate, except for the fact many aspects of it have always smouldered away, culminating in Walters’ remarkable claim in 2010. The assumption, however, had always been that the Maori players had felt themselves nobbled and unable to play their normal game because of instructions they were not to indulge in fisticuffs.

But to place all of the emphasis on the Springboks, and the way the South African Government’s apartheid policy (or what until 1948 had been a colour bar which though enforced was not enshrined in law) can provide a slight distortion of Maori rugby’s totality.

As Levin’s Sonny Sciascia, the first of Maori ancestry, in 1985, to be president of the New Zealand Rugby Union, observes, Maori rugby has a rich history which rather than being embroiled in controversy deserves to be celebrated.

The first national Maori side took the field in 1910 on a tour of Australia and, indeed, Sciascia’s father was one of the players. There was, of course, the Native side which in 1888 made a marathon tour of the British Isles, Australia and New Zealand. But some of that side were pakeha.

One of the side was the legendary Tom Ellison, whose role in the formation of the New Zealand Union, and who was the instigator of many of the game’s innovations, such as the wing forward position, is another reason for celebrating Maori rugby this year.

Among others are the many fine players the Maori has produced: Nepia and Mills, from the 1924-1925 Invincibles, Tori Reid in the 1930s, Smith in the 1940s, Keith Davis, Bill Gray and Walsh in the 1950s, Waka Nathan and Mac Herewini in the 1960s, Sid Going in the 1960s and 1970s, and onto the more modern giants like Buck Shelford, Steve McDowell, Bill Osborne, Glen Osborne, the Brooke brothers, Carlos Spencer, Piri Weepu and Leon MacDonald.

There have, too, been many exciting games and notable feats. France were defeated by a side led by Walsh in 1961, Nathan as coach led a Maori revival in the 1970s and between 1996 and 2006 there was an amazing sequence of success under the coaching of Matt Te Pou. In that decade in which Te Pou was in charge Maori sides lost only four of 37 games, two of which were to a full strength Wallaby side, England also at full strength and a Barbarians selection almost of All Black standard. The culmination of Te Pou’s coaching era came with a memorable win in 2005 against the touring Lions in Hamilton.

But always it is the South African issue which tends to overshadow even the great moments. That includes the last occasion when the Springboks met the Maori, at Napier in 1981. The match ended in a 12-all draw, a notable feat for the Billy Bush-led Maori side because the only games the Springboks lost on that tempestuous tour were the first and third tests. However, the Maori probably should have won the game as the dropped goal which allowed the Springboks a draw clearly missed.

All of which raises the question as to whether, in view of the many snubs Maori suffered through the years, as to whether some sort of formal apology should be made. On the surface, there is undoubtedly a case for thinking that this should be so and many a well respected commentator and columnist has called for it.

But that number doesn’t appear to include too many Maori, other than those with a political axe to grind like Willie Jackson and Pita Sharples. Eminent Maori like Sciascia, Nathan and Keith Davis can’t see much point in one after so many years and seem to take a charitable view, rather like Nelson Mandela in the recent film, ‘Invictus,’ that it is time to move on.

There are also many other questions arising as to whether a formal apology is as simplistic a matter as it first appears. Who is to do the apology, the Rugby Union, its South African counterpart, the New Zealand Government or the South African Government, all of whom were implicated in the non-selection of Maori in 1928, 1949 and 1960? And on whose behalf is the apology to be made? It can’t be all of the presumably white population of New Zealand for many of them opposed the basis on which the tours of 1928, 1949 and 1960 were made. And to whom is the apology to be made?

For it wasn’t only Maori who were excluded from those first three tours. New Zealanders of Pacific island extraction were excluded, and indeed, rather than 50 years ago as one television news report suggested, New Zealand’s difficulties with South African racial policies goes back almost a century. The first to suffer was a fine forward Ranji Wilson, who because of West Indian parentage was barred from touring South Africa with the 1919 New Zealand Army team.

There are many, too, who might argue that by the stance it took in the 1960s the New Zealand Rugby Union council of the time effectively apologised. Under the chairmanship of Tom Morrison, the NZRU took an unequivocal stand that no longer would the All Blacks tour South Africa unless it was “fully representative”. That was a polite way of saying the team had to be made up of players, be they white, black, brown or brindle.

Morrison’s son, Grant, who lives on Auckland’s North Shore and is a staunch supporter of North Harbour’s Marist club, says it became his father’s over-riding mission to have an All Black side without qualifications touring South Africa. When the South African Government continued to be stubborn on this point an All Black tour scheduled for South Africa in 1967 was cancelled and instead went to Britain and France instead. He believes the NZRU of the time has not been given the credit for its stand during the 1960s.

In 1970, the South Africans finally relented and in the team which made the rescheduled tour that year there were Sid Going, Blair Furlong and Buff Milner, who had Maori descent, and Bryan Williams, who was part Samoan. Nathan ruefully reflects that not going in 1967 cost him and Herewini their chance of touring South Africa, for by 1970 Nathan had retired and Herewini was into his 30s and past his best.

Nathan thus never did get the chance to play the Springboks in a test, something he regrets. Both he and Herewini were a little too young for the 1960 tour, even if Nathan at 19 had made the Maori side which played the Lions in 1959. And then Nathan was injured and missed the 1965 series in this country.

“I did play against the Springboks in 1965 for the Maori at Wellington and after the game Neil McPhail [then the All Blacks coach] came into the dressing room and said I would be playing in the final test. But I had to say, there was no way I could as my back was stuffed,” Nathan recalls.

There are also those who say that one motivation for the old NZRU councils deciding Maori shouldn’t be in touring teams in South Africa was a concern they could suffer insults and indignities in a hostile environment. It has to be said that even in those years when they seemed to be overly accommodating of South Africa’s racism the NZRU councillors still made Maori rugby a priority.

Rugby historian Ron Palenski wrote in his 1992 centenary history, ‘Our National Game,’ that the big tour the Maori made in 1926 to Britain was consolation for the fact Maori players would miss the 1928 tour. Ironically, the two Maori players who would have been certainties for a merit-chosen side in 1928 didn’t make the 1926 tour, either.

In 1949, too, while the All Blacks were in South Africa, the Maori toured Australia and the two matches against the Wallabies were recognised by the Australians as full caps, as were the internationals played on a Maori tour of Australia in 1958.

It would be wrong, too, to assume that all Maori were not hurt by their exclusion. Sciascia’s brother-in-law was a fine halfback for Wellington and New Zealand Universities in the 1940s, Ranfurly Jacob (who has that distinctive Christian name because he was born in 1927, when his dad, Harry Jacob, was leading Manawhenua to a shield win over Wairarapa). From the 1940s Ranfurly Jacob and his university mate, Whatarangi Winiata, now president of the Maori party, were opposed to tours with South Africa when apartheid was official policy.

In 1981, when the Maori met the Springboks in Napier, living still in Hawke’s Bay and fit and well in his early 80s was a survivor from the game also in Napier in 1921, a talented midfield back Jackie Blake. He would have been an obvious guest of honour at the 1981 game, but Blake, a highly dignified man, declined to attend.

A centenary celebration is not just a time to look back but also to look forward. Two of the Maori side’s most outstanding coaches, Nathan and Te Pou, both have concerns for the future, especially as the game becomes increasingly professional.

Te Pou fears that because Maori rugby’s destiny is in the hands of others it might continue to slip under the radar, pointing out that games have become infrequent in recent years even allowing for this year’s games against England and Ireland. It is accepted the All Blacks will always have first call on players and that has been the case for some years. That doesn’t bother Te Pou as it means chances for others and in his sides he had special regard for players who weren’t quite All Blacks, Errol Brain, Jim Coe and Slade McFarland. They were the core of his sides and took care to look after its environment.

Nathan worries that Maori rugby might simply be pushed aside in what is an even more congested programme, with not only the All Blacks, Junior All Blacks or New Zealand A, colts and sevens. Maori could soon go the same away as the once prized New Zealand Universities, which once played and beat Springbok and Lions sides, but now can’t even get provincial games.

There is, too, the point raised by Dr Manahi Paewai in 1971 and which caused so much controversy at the time. In the official match progamme for the Lions-Maori game Paewai, a top player himself in the 1940s, suggested a time would come when Maori rugby would be phased out because there would be so much inter-marriage in later years just about every second New Zealander would be able to claim some sort of Maori ancestry.

Has that time been reached? Maori sides of recent years have been noticeably Europeanised. In the 2008 Maori side, for example, there were only a handful of recognisably Maori surnames, Weepu, Paku and Kawau. And the light complexion of many of the players raised memories of Billy Bush’s advice to Otago prop Steve Hotton when in the late 1980s he was pressing his claims for Maori selection. Be careful, advised Bush, to not nick yourself when next having a shave as you might lose all your Maori blood.

BREAK OUT

[Heading]

Rewriting History

[Intro]

For those who saw it, the Maori clash with the Springboks in 1956 never quite made sense. LINDSAY KNIGHT looks at the theories behind why the New Zealanders took such a hiding that day.

[Body Copy]

RUGBY JOURNALISTS and historians, especially those of us who still vividly recall the momentous events of the 1950s, would have been gob-smacked by the claims, on radio and television, by the 1956 New Zealand Maori fullback Muru Walters that the side was ordered to lose its game against the Springboks at Eden Park.

Walters says that the Minister of Maori Affairs of the time, Ernest Corbett, entered the team dressing room before kick-off and said for the future of the game, and to ensure tours continuing to South Africa, the Maori side should lose.

Walters’ claim carries with it the mana of one who subsequently became a bishop in the Anglican Church.

Even more incredibly, the country’s biggest daily newspaper in an editorial has stated Walter’s claim was “corroborated.” Where is the evidence for that? Others who played in the game and presumably were in the same dressing shed don’t have the same recollection as Bishop Walters.

One is the team’s vice captain Tiny Hill. Another is the halfback Keith Davis, who was also an All Black reserve that year for the third and fourth tests.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Muru but I cannot verify that,” Davis says. “When I heard what he had said I was flabbergasted and quite taken aback.”

Davis was aware of dignitaries coming into the dressing shed, but whatever they may have said “went over my head.” That was because, as was his usual pre-match custom, he would have been more involved with what he was going to do in the upcoming game.

Davis says the Maori side was obviously shattered by the margin of the defeat. “We let the whole nation down,” he says. Maunga Emery, a loose forward in that match, later to become a Kiwi league international and grandfather of the celebrated Stacey Jones, also can’t recall any speech from a Government Minister.

Going into the game, the Maori side felt confident of at least extending the Springboks. In late June and early July the Maori had made an unbeaten four-match tour of the South Island, then on the Wednesday before playing the Springboks had easily beaten Counties.

So what went wrong to produce a 37-nil hiding from the Springboks, which converted to modern scoring values would today have been 51-nil?

Davis thinks one of the reasons may have been that instead of his regular inside back partner Eddie Whatarau he was paired with a 19-year old not then a regular representative player in Jimmy Taitoko. Their formation had also been changed to what the All Blacks were using at the time.

“This was for the first five to stand well deep and the second five and the rest of the backline to be flat,” Davis says. “In our case that left a big gap and the Springboks and their fly-half (“Peewee” Howe ran through it. There was a defensive break-down and our forwards didn’t front up either.”

Whether it was as explicit as Walters recalls, there appears to be an element of truth in a belief that if not instructed specifically to lose, the 1956 Maori side was put under a handicap by what might be termed political intrusion.

In the early 1990s television commentator Keith Quinn interviewed two other members of the 1956 side, Pat Walsh and Albie Pryor. Transcripts of those interviews confirm that Corbett did speak to the players and, according to Walsh, said something along the lines of making sure that things didn’t develop.

According to Pryor, the Springboks’ coach Danie Craven visited the team hotel before the game and, in Pryor’s words, conned the Maori players with a plea for them to play the game without any dirt. Pryor says in the actual game the Springboks then “kicked the hell” out of the Maori players, who felt constrained to offer no retaliation.

Emery, for his part, believes the Maori side were compromised by not being allowed to play their natural running game. “On our tour of the South Island we had played some brilliant rugby, but against the Springboks we were told we had to adopt more of an All Black style,” he says.

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