Memories of a tough rugby tour in 1960
Maori players excluded due to apartheid policy
It was July 1960 and there was rugby fever in the air. The New Zealand All Blacks were in Cape Town and were in a mean mood.
Their mission was to become the first All Black team to win a series in SA. Their first tour in 1928 had ended tied 2-2 and in 1949 the Springboks won the series 4-0 thanks in the main to some accurate goalkicking by tight-head prop Okey Geffin, who kicked over 10 penalties and a conversion in the four Test matches.
Now, the 1960 team had arrived to avenge those results and return home with the spoils. They were led by prop Wilson Whineray (later Sir Wilson), with an excellent crop of both forwards and backs.
Their giant 28-year-old forward Peter Jones, who was 1.88m tall, weighed 108kg and could run the 100m in 10 seconds (so it was claimed), had been praised by some former Springboks as the best forward in the world and was expected to be the king-pin in the scrums. However, in a match just before the first Test, he sustained an injury after being tackled by two players which virtually ended his tour.
When Jones showed his obvious displeasure, he was booed by the Pretoria crowd to which he retaliated with a 30second finger gesture which was not a “peace sign” as his biographer later wrote.
The tour itself was most controversial as the SA authorities imposed the exclusion of Maori players from the team, so it was an All White All Black side.
Two or three days before the second Test at Newlands, the All Blacks arrived at the school I attended, Wynberg Boys’ High, for a practice session and even after 64 years I have vivid memories of Jones among the forwards.
He was a big, tough man, and I later learnt he was a fisherman in the icy waters around New Zealand, which no doubt had much to do with his undoubted strength.
Despite their excellent play in the provincial tour matches, there was a shock 13-0 loss to the Springboks in the first Test at Ellis Park, thanks in the main to the two tries scored by SA’s left wing, the high strutting, long striding Hennie van Zyl.
The Springboks had six new caps in their team and a new captain in fullback Roy Dryburgh.
Locks Johan Claassen and Avril Malan, who would later take over the captaincy from Dryburgh, were superior in the line-outs.
In the All Black team was their fullback Don Clarke, who had gained a reputation as a long-distance kicker but he missed an early penalty.
Clarke could kick the ball from his try-line a distance of 60 or 70m, which disheartened the opposition, and it was his kicking I recall from the second Test at Newlands, which I watched from the halfway line.
We were packed like sardines on a warm winter day, and the visitors won the Test 113, but after the third Test was drawn 11-11, SA clinched the series with an 8-3 win in the final Test at the Boet Erasmus stadium in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha).
So, again, New Zealand returned without a series victory in SA.
Today, the hero of the 1960 first Test, Hennie van Zyl, is 88 years old, and enjoys talking about his exploits in that series.
His right-wing partner in those four Tests, Mike Antelme, is now 90 and, sadly, they, along with Avril Malan, now 87, are the last Bok survivors of the 1960 series.
The tour itself was most controversial as the SA authorities imposed the exclusion of Maori players from the team, so it was an All White All Black side