Mr Don axed from rugby body

Press, 20 April 1979, Page 1

Mr Don axed from rugby body

PA Wellington The controversial visit to South Africa last month by New Zealand rugby players and admin--istrators cast its shadow over the annual meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Union in Wellington yesterday. On Wednesday, in an unprecedented action, the council of the union asked the South African Rugby Board for an explanation as to how eight New Zealanders had become involved in the international matches when permission had been given for only six to attend.

Yesterday, one of the administrators who had accepted a personal invitation to accompany the players, Mr Ron Don, of Auckland, was ousted as a North Island council member.

His defeat at the hands of a Wanganui representative, Mr Paul Mitchell,came soon after the newly elected president (Mr Duncan Ross) had expressed doubts as to whether participation in the South African matches had done anything to help the cause of the scheduled visit of a Springbok team to New Zealand in 1981.

“Indeed, I fear the reverse is the case,” he said. Mr Mitchell said after his election, on the second ballot, that he believed he had been elected on a protest vote.

Mr Don said later he accepted that that had been part of the reason for his defeat. “The other was the continuous attacks made on me through the news media and through uninformed editorial opinion,” he said.

Mr Don, a long-time proponent of close ties with South Africa, conceded that his defeat could be interpreted as a setback to rugby relations with South Africa.

But it had not changed his view that 95 per cent of New Zealanders favoured continued sports links with South Africa. He believed that some councillors of the union were out of touch with the feelings of rugby people.

In an address, on his visit to South Africa to delegates in the afternoon, Mr Don said that he believed it was important for New Zealand to have rugby contacts with all countries regardless of their politics. “Forget politics: look at the mess the world is in because of politics. We should think only of rugby,” he said. Of the scheduled 1981 tour by South Africa, Mr Don "said, “Don’t let’s brush it under the carpet. Let’s say the tour is on. If the politicians want to

stop it, let them. That’s their problem.” Mr Don said that almost all critics of South Africa — Messrs Taiboys, Rowling, and Isbey included — had one thing in common: they had never been there. “Certainly South Africa has problems but I suggest they are solving them step by step,” said Mr

Don. “I don’t agree with everything in South Africa but I don’t agree with everything in New Zealand, either. “You would be the first to complain if South Africans told us how to run New Zealand, yet we say to them how they should conduct their affairs.”

Mr Don said that organisations such as Halt All Racist Tours were doing New Zealand and sport tremendous harm overseas. He blamed the news media for printing untrue H.A.R.T. statements which were then clipped and sent overseas as representing public opinion.

He had found that integration of sport in South Africa had gone ahead a great deal since he had been there two years ago and that all sports in South Africa had merit selection since 1977.

Mr Don was supported in his remarks by the two councillors who accompanied him to South Africa, Messrs Tom Johnson and Ivan Vodanovich.

Mr Johnson told delegates that he wanted to make it clear where he stood on the 1981 South African tour. “We need them more than they need us.” Mr Vodanovich said he believed that the visit by the New Zealanders had been worth while and would help the integration of sport in that country. N.Z.R.F.U. meeting, Back page.