ALL BLACKS VERSUS SPRINGBOKS: BATTLE FOR THE WORLD
Ranji Wilson was a star. ‘One of the greatest forwards in the world,’ declared the London Daily Mail. ‘Wonderful,’ exclaimed The Times, after he dominated another game for the New Zealand Services team in 1919.1 Born in Christchurch to an English mother and a West Indian father, Ranji won ten caps for the All Blacks before the war, becoming as famous for his skills with the ball in hand as he was for tight work in the forwards. He was so versatile that he had even played on the wing with distinction for the NZ Services.
Now, just a few months after the end of the war, he was starring in the nearest thing to a world cup that rugby union would have until 1987: the 1919 Inter-Services Tournament for the King’s Cup.
The huge popularity of inter-services rugby in the last two years of the First World War, coupled with the hundreds of thousands of players from across the British Empire who were waiting to be demobilised, led to calls for a major international tournament to be staged once peace had been declared. In the spring of 1919, apparently at the request of the War Office in London, a 16-match competition was organised featuring representative sides from the services of the rugby-playing nations of the British Empire.2
The tournament had an explicitly political aim, as The Times explained. ‘It is a most practical means of continuing and strengthening the bonds of interest between us and our relations scattered over the world. War has brought all parts of the Empire closer … and the strongest of [ties] is the common interest in British games.’3 To underline this, the British combined services side was officially known as the ‘Mother Country’.
Alongside the Mother Country and the RAF, who had decided to participate under their own name, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada competed in a league table over two months with matches being staged in front of massive crowds at Swansea, Portsmouth, Leicester, Newport, Edinburgh, Gloucester, Bradford and Twickenham. Almost half the New Zealand side were full internationals and everything suggested that they would finish unbeaten at the top of the table. That was until their last match when Australia, who had earlier lost to the Mother Country and the RAF, pulled off a memorable performance and outscored the New Zealanders by two tries to one, eventually scraping home 6-5.
Three days later the Mother Country triumphed over South Africa, leaving them tied with the Kiwis at the top of the table. A play-off was hastily arranged four days later on a Wednesday afternoon at Twickenham. There, in a tight game, the New Zealand forwards led by Ranji Wilson came out on top to defeat the Mother Country 9-3, in front of an audience which included the New Zealand prime minister William Massey, in Europe for the talks on the Versailles Treaty. Although etiquette forbade the words to be uttered, no one could now doubt that New Zealand were indeed rugby union’s world champions.
Three days later, after a 20-3 win over the French Services team, they were presented with the King’s Cup by the King of England himself, George V. International rugby union was back, and the success of the inter-services tournament confirmed once more that it was truly the winter game of the British Empire.
The King’s Cup was also the first time that New Zealand had met South Africa in the international rugby arena. Although New Zealanders had played English-speaking South Africans in friendly matches during the Anglo-Boer War, national representative sides had yet to face each other. Half-hearted attempts had been made to invite the 1905 All Blacks to stop off in South Africa on their way home and the New Zealanders invited the Springboks before the war but costs had proved prohibitive for the South Africans.4
Despite the fact that the New Zealand services side comfortably overcame the South Africans 14-5 in the King’s Cup, two days after the match the South African Rugby Board (SARB) cabled William Schreiner, the former prime minister of the Cape Colony and past president of SARB who was now the South African High Commissioner in London, asking him to approach the New Zealanders and Australians to tour the country on their way back home.
The New Zealanders agreed and their 29-strong touring party arrived in South Africa on 17 July to much acclaim. Over the next six weeks they played 15 matches, winning 11, drawing one but losing to Griqualand West, Western Province and a Combined Cape Town/Stellenbosch University side. As the tour progressed, it was clear that a deep rivalry had been ignited, as the mayor of Cape Town recognised when he told a civic reception that ‘when South Africa and New Zealand meet in an international game, it will be the greatest day in the history of rugby football’.5
There was just one difference between the New Zealand team that had thrilled British crowds to win the King’s Cup and that which left such a legacy in South Africa. Ranji Wilson, ‘perhaps the greatest player in the Service team’ according to the Natal Witness, was not one of the tourists.6
Two weeks before the New Zealand squad was due to sail for Cape Town, the SARB executive had met and voted 8-6 to send a confidential telegram to London. ‘If visitors include Maoris tour would be wrecked and immense harm politically and otherwise would follow. Please explain position fully and try arrange exclusion.’7 Ranji, who had captained the New Zealanders in a number of matches in Britain, was told that he could not tour because of the colour of his skin. Parekura Tureia, the Maori five-eighth who had been described as ‘a player likely to win a game all by himself’, was also passed over for selection.8
Rugby union’s greatest international rivalry, its most intense contest and the very expression of South African and New Zealand manhood, was founded on the exclusion of those whose skins were not white. It would be a scar that would define the game for the rest of the century.
The world championship of rugby
The success of the white New Zealanders in South Africa meant that the NZRU began to make preparations for a reciprocal tour almost as soon as the Services’ side returned home late in 1919. Less than two years later, in July 1921, the Springboks arrived, having warmed up with a short tour of Australia, where they had won all five of their matches, including whitewashing New South Wales in a three-match series in Sydney.
As the Australians noticed, South African rugby owed more to the British game than did that of New Zealand. The power of the Springbok game lay in the play of the forwards both in the loose and in the scrum. The ball was kept tight and opposition mistakes seized upon and turned to maximum advantage. The difference in the two nations’ style was exemplified in the scrum. Although they had used a 3-4-1 scrum formation on their 1906 tour of Britain, the South Africans still largely favoured the traditional 3-2-3 formation. In contrast, the All Blacks’ 2-3-2 scrum had two men in the front row designated as hookers with the aim of raking the ball out as quickly as possible so that the scrum-half could launch his backs into attack. The eighth forward, the rover, never actually packed down but would feed the scrum and then stand his ground to protect the scrum-half from opposing forwards. This was, of course, the ‘wing-forward’ play that had so frustrated the British during the 1905 All Blacks’ tour.
The two systems were tested to destruction in front of 20,000 people at the first Test at Dunedin. The first half saw a much heavier South African pack dominate possession, creating momentum and space for their backs. Starved of the ball, the All Blacks found it difficult to get off the back foot and when Attie van Heerden scored in the right corner from the blind side of the scrum half-time saw the visitors leading 5-0.
With the Springboks now kicking into the sun in the second half, the New Zealanders started peppering them with short, high kicks. The Springboks proved equal to the challenge until a lucky bounce took the ball into the arms of Wanganui forward Moke Belliss who touched down for a converted try that tied the scores.
The All Blacks then took the lead following a Springbok kick that was gathered by right-winger Jack Steel on the halfway line, who then beat three defenders to touch down between the posts. Percy Storey clinched the victory with a try on the left wing just before full-time. The All Blacks had triumphed 13-5 in the epic match that everyone had hoped for.
The two sides reassembled for the second Test in Auckland a fortnight later and once again there was nothing in it. Billy Sendin crossed first for a Springbok try but the All Blacks clawed their way back and lock-forward Andrew McLean forced his way over from close range and the teams went into half-time locked up at five points each.
The South African forwards’ strength and short passing gradually wore down the New Zealanders. As full-time approached the Springbok forwards once more forced the All Blacks into a defensive scrum near their own line. The ball came out on the New Zealand side but Jack Steel’s relieving kick went straight down the throat of veteran South African full-back Gerhard Morkel standing a few yards in from touch. As the All Black forwards raced to close him down, he launched a drop kick that sailed clear over the bar for four points. Nine-five ahead, the Springboks held their grip on the match until no-side was whistled. The Test series was tied.
In the three weeks that passed before the third and deciding match, the Test series grew in importance from a sporting contest to one for the very soul of the New Zealand nation. ‘When a nation ceases to be interested in the career of her representatives in sport, it spells not only the decay of sport but the decadence of the nation,’ explained the Evening Post. ‘We simply cannot afford to lose the third Test.’9
Only Wales and Australia had ever defeated the All Blacks in 24 Test matches since the start of the century. The taste of defeat was rare and unpleasant. But the rivalry with South Africa went deeper. Both were young nations and, in an age when the British Empire was the dominant world power, both measured their value as nations by their relationship to the Mother Country. To become the world champions of rugby union – however unofficial that title would be – was a way in which South Africa and New Zealand could stake a claim to be a major power in the Empire.
That link between sport and politics came raging to the surface the week before the final Test. The Springboks narrowly defeated a Maori representative team 9-8 at Napier in a rough and undisciplined game. Two days later, the Napier Daily Telegraph published a telegram from Charles Blackett, the Johannesburg Star reporter accompanying the tourists, which described the game as ‘the most unfortunate match ever played. … the spectacle of thousands of Europeans frantically cheering on a band of coloured men to defeat members of their own race was too much for the Springboks, who were frankly disgusted.’10
Blackett also alleged that the tourists only agreed to play the Maori after pressure from the tour manager Harold Bennett. Bennett denied the accusation and apologised to his hosts but the damage had been done. New Zealand’s belief that its race relations were harmonious was piqued, and the third Test became an even greater trial of the merits of the two nations.
Indeed, the determination to be victorious led the New Zealand selectors to take the unprecedented, and according to the rules of the game completely illegal, step of calling former New Zealand rugby league captain Karl Ifwersen into the side at five-eighth. Ifwersen had been capped for the Kiwis in 1913 and then captained them in 1919. In early 1921 the Auckland Rugby Union persuaded him to switch to union and he captained the provincial side against the Springboks. Now he ran out in front of 35,000 spectators at Wellington eager to see history being made.
The game itself was a disappointment. Heavy rain meant that the muddy ground was covered in standing water and the match quickly became a war of attrition. The All Blacks occasionally managed to break through the Springboks line but were unable to outfox Gerhard Morkel at full-back, whose experience and positional sense snuffed out each probe. It ended 0-0.
If it was a frustrating outcome for both sides, it could not have been a better result to keep the flame of rivalry burning vigorously between the two countries. The struggle to be world champions had become more than a game; it was now a quest.
‘To Win the World’s Title’
It would be seven years before the two sides met again, when the All Blacks made their first tour to South Africa in 1928. Meanwhile, the gap between New Zealand and South Africa and the rest of the rugby union world continued to grow.
In 1924, the All Blacks made their second visit to Britain, going one better than in 1905 by winning all of their 32 matches to earn the sobriquet ‘The Invincibles’. Even Wales proved no match, and were despatched 19-0 at Swansea. The only side to threaten them was Wavell Wakefield’s England, whose brutal approach to the game led to New Zealand forward Cyril Brownlie becoming the first player ever to be sent off in an international match less than ten minutes after the kick-off.
Earlier in 1924, a fifth British Isles team (they would not be known as the Lions until after the Second World War) had toured South Africa. Captained by England forward Ronald Cove-Smith, the side could not claim to be the best of the British game. Alongside superb players like Wales’ Rowe Harding, Scotland’s New Zealand-born winger Ian Smith and England forward Tom Voyce, the squad also contained players whose international careers could be diplomatically described as brief. With the exception of a 3-3 draw in the third Test at Port Elizabeth, the Springboks swept the tourists aside, comfortably winning the other three Test matches.
The game had gone from strength to strength in South Africa, especially among Afrikaans speakers. Fierce local competitions and the growing importance of the provincial Currie Cup, together with the international profile that the game offered meant that rugby had become a means of making a mark on the world. Whereas once the game had been the preserve of elite private schools, now it began to take a hold across the educational system. The decade saw the number of schools playing in the Transvaal rise from nothing to 30 playing for the A. G. Robertson Cup. Western Province had 100 school teams playing the game, Johannesburg 85. Perhaps most symbolically, the Afrikaans Boys’ High School in Pretoria took up the game in 1920 and soon Die Witbulle, as the school’s first team was known, became the dominating force in the region.11
In New Zealand, the intensity of the game had continued to increase. Despite a dominant Hawke’s Bay side, eight different teams won the Ranfurly Shield, known to all as the ‘Log o’ Wood’, between 1921 and 1928. It had been presented for the first time in 1902 by the Earl of Ranfurly, the Governor of New Zealand, and competed for on a challenge basis, the trophy being passed on to whichever side defeated the current holders. The shield became the new symbol of the inter-provincial and local rivalries that had spurred the development of rugby in the 19th century, and the fact that it was won through challenge matches meant that, if all the elements were aligned on any given day, any team could have a chance of glory, whether it was little Manawhenua or mighty Wellington. And, as part of this growth, Maori participation also increased. The Hawke’s Bay team that held on to the Ranfurly Shield for so long had a large number of Maori players and three of the biggest stars of the 1924 Invincibles were Maori: the immortal George Nepia, half-back Jimmy Mill and five-eighth Lui Paewai.
Anticipation in both countries of the All Black tour of South Africa in 1928 could not have been higher, but for the New Zealand selectors the quest to become world champions was subordinated to the racial policies of the South African Rugby Board. In June 1927, the New Zealand Rugby Union told its provinces confidentially that no Maori players would be selected for the South African tour. George Nepia, the world’s greatest full-back, and Jimmy Mill, who had been instrumental in the 1924 tourists’ wins over England and Wales, were left at home, and aspiring Maori players were ignored. Outside the Maori community, there was little protest.
Despite the All Blacks winning six of their eight opening tour matches before the first Test, most critics predicted a Springbok win. But as their form improved and the rugby began to flow, hopes were raised back in New Zealand, ‘To Win The World’s Title’, the New Zealand Truth proclaimed on the eve of the first Test in Durban. But despite a tight first half when only a Bennie Osler drop goal separated the sides, the Springbok pack stormed over the New Zealanders in the second half to win 17-0. It was the biggest defeat ever suffered by the All Blacks.
Three weeks later battle was rejoined at Ellis Park in Johannesburg. After being pushed off the ball and starved of possession in the first Test, this time the All Blacks radically changed their approach to scrummaging and abandoned their 2-3-2 formation in favour of the Springboks’ 3-4-1 technique. Although 3-4-1 had been used on their 1906 British tour, it was only in the mid-1920s, thanks to Stellenbosch University coach A. F. ‘Oubass’ Markötter, that it became the common method of forming a scrum.12 The tactical shift paid off and New Zealand squeaked home with a drop goal and a penalty to two penalties.
Thus forearmed, the South African pack switched up a gear for the third Test and ground the All Blacks down. But unlike the claustrophobic defensive sieges of the first two Tests, this time the play flowed back and forth with five tries being scored. With a minute to go, the Springboks were hanging on to an 11-6 lead when a final back-line movement by the All Blacks set their left-winger Bert Grenside into the clear. But as he dived for the corner two Springboks threw themselves at him and pushed him into touch. South Africa now held the upper hand with one Test to go.
They did not take that advantage. The fourth Test went 13-5 to the All Blacks, not least due to the tourists adopting the Springboks’ tactics of playing a tight game in the forwards. The overwhelming emotion in New Zealand was one of relief, but the frustration felt by the South Africans in not clinching the series was tempered by the fact that they were clearly the better side. In their eyes, there was no doubt that they were the unofficial world champions.
Hemispheric pressure
The gap between British rugby and the southern hemisphere nations was about far more than the standard of play. The New Zealanders had always viewed the sport primarily as a handling and running game, and the arrival of rugby league in 1907 gave rise to calls for reform of the rules of the game. In Auckland, where league was strongest, the provincial union introduced a series of reforms as early as 1916, including a ban on direct kicking into touch, which became known as the ‘Auckland Rules’. Substitutes were also allowed on both sides of the Tasman Sea, something that was anathema to the RFU.
In 1919, the NZRU, supported by the New South Wales Rugby Union (then the governing body of Australian rugby union), proposed to the International Rugby Football Board (IB) a series of rule changes designed to speed up the game and relax the amateur regulations. They also called for the establishment of an Imperial Rugby Board with equal representation for the three southern hemisphere ‘colonies’ and the four home nations. The IB turned them down flat, but the New Zealanders and the Australians continued to lobby for a voice in international rugby affairs.
Rugby politics reflected the politics of the Empire. The ‘white dominions’ – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa – had been campaigning for greater equality with Britain and the 1926 Imperial Conference had issued what became known as the ‘Balfour Declaration’, stating that the Dominions and Britain were self-governing nations of equal status. Five years later the Statute of Westminster granted legislative equality for the Dominions. This was the type of relationship that the rugby administrators of Australia and New Zealand wanted for their sport.
But the IB proved to be less amenable than the British government. It vetoed any discussion on the amateur regulations and refused Dominion representation on the IB. As a concession, the IB agreed to ‘dispensations’ that allowed Australia and New Zealand to forbid direct kicking into touch from inside the 25-yard line.
These differences between Britain and the Dominions came to a head on the 1930 British tour to Australia and New Zealand. As usual, the tour was entirely organised by the RFU and managed by its former president James Baxter. Baxter had a reputation for what could euphemistically be described as ‘plain speaking’ and was not afraid to voice his opinions. In Auckland, a journalist asked him why he thought rugby league was so popular in the city. ‘Every town must have its sewer,’ he replied.13
Despite unexpectedly winning the first Test, when Newport’s Jack Morley squeezed in at the corner in the last minute for a 6-3 win on a snow-covered Dunedin pitch, the British lost the series 3-1. When they returned home, Baxter persuaded the RFU to change the scrummage rules to outlaw New Zealand’s wing-forward and the 2–3–2 formation. The ‘dispensations’ were also withdrawn, although they were later reinstated to assuage Antipodean anger.
Conspicuous by their absence from these controversies were the South Africans. In fact, they were loyal supporters of the British position. Springboks’ manager Harold Bennett had told the New Zealand press in 1921 that ‘first of all, we stand by the English Rugby Union. We have always stuck fast to it. And we hold dearly to amateurism.’14 They did not share the New Zealanders’ approach to playing the game and, with no domestic threat from rugby league, felt no reason to change the rules.
Moreover, personal ties between South Africa and Britain were much stronger than those between the British and the other countries. South African players were a common sight in an England jersey during the interwar years. Frank Mellish played six times for England in the 1920s and returned home to win six more caps with the Springboks. Brian Black won ten England caps in the early 1930s. Hubert Freakes won three caps in the late 1930s. Full-back Harold ‘Tuppy’ Owen-Smith scored a century in cricket for South Africa against England in 1929 and then won ten England rugby caps, three as captain, between 1934 and 1937.
Even so, the visit of the third Springbok side to tour Britain in the 1931–32 season did little to deepen the friendship. The Springboks disposed of each of the home nations with brutal efficiency, thanks to their relentless scrummaging machine and the metronome kicking of fly-half and captain Bennie Osler. They played ten-men rugby with clinical precision, recycling the ball from the scrum for Osler to find touch to set up another scrum. At this time, teams could opt for a scrum or line-out after finding touch – the Springboks always took the scrum. In the first half of the Test against England, the South African pack won 23 out of 28 scrums yet such was the conservatism of their play that just one try was scored.
Significantly, their only reverse of the tour was a 30-21 defeat to a combined Leicestershire/East Midlands side when Osler didn’t play. Yet despite warm and cordial relations off the field, the dour Springbok tactics left many in Britain feeling uncomfortable. Dai Gent, the pre-war England fly-half of no mean repute, complained of Osler’s tactics: ‘how monotonous it all was, and how terribly irritating for his centres. Frankly I found these tactics extremely tedious.’15
Although the 1938 British tour to South Africa proved to be more successful than many had hoped – the tourists won 16 of the 21 non-Test matches as well as a last-gasp victory in the final Test – the Springboks once again steamrolled their way to straightforward victories in the first two Tests. By this time, though, the British tour was to the South Africans merely the brandy and cigars after the main course of their triumphant 1937 tour to New Zealand.
It had been nine years since the two sides had fought out the epic drawn series in South Africa. In that time the Springboks had lost just twice, both defeats in the five-Test series against the touring Wallabies in 1933. But the All Blacks had slumped, losing the 1929 Test series 3-0 to the Wallabies, tying their 1934 series, losing to the British touring side in 1930 and then to England and Wales on the 1935 tour of Britain. Since last playing the Springboks, the All Blacks had played 19, won ten, lost eight and drawn one. This was not the form of potential world champions.
The Springboks arrived in New Zealand in July 1937 and made their way down North Island, imperiously brushing aside provincial teams on their way to the first Test at Wellington. And it was there in front of 45,000 spectators that the African juggernaut hit an All Black brick wall. Playing out of their skins, the All Blacks held back the Springbok pack despite having only 14 players in the second half after winger Donald Cobden was injured. Ronald Ward was taken out of the pack to play on the wing and the All Blacks won 13-7 using a seven-man scrum against the Springboks’ eight.
New Zealand erupted in national euphoria. But the elation was not to last. Three weeks later at Christchurch another huge crowd gathered in anticipation of an All Black series win. But the New Zealand Evening Post summed up the story of the match in its headline: ‘Overpowering influence of mighty pack’. The Springboks won the scrums by almost two to one and, despite the All Blacks leading at half-time through two tries from Taranaki wing John Sullivan, the match was wrenched from their grasp in their second half by 13 unanswered Springbok points.
The final and decisive Test match would be played in Auckland. ‘The test looms up before us like a huge mountain,’ the press were informed by one of the tourists.16 Fifty thousand people crammed into Eden Park – the biggest crowd ever to assemble anywhere for anything in New Zealand – to witness the Springboks make a molehill out of that mountain. They won 17-6, scoring five tries to nil. The All Blacks were starved of the ball – the South African pack won 48 of the 76 scrums – and the Springbok backs carved their opponents to pieces.
South Africa were now indisputably the best team in the world, even if etiquette prevented them from saying so. ‘This is not a struggle for a world championship. It is just a friendly visit to another country to play a friendly game of rugger,’ tour manager Alex de Villiers told his hosts at a farewell banquet for his team.17 But it was a friendship that extended only so far.
On 8 November 1936, eight months before the arrival of the Springboks, the New Zealand Rugby Union announced that, unlike previous tours by Australia and the British Isles, the South African tourists would not play against a Maori representative team. Rugger may have been a friendly game but, as Ranji Wilson discovered in 1919, politics, and especially the politics of race, came first for rugby union’s leaders.