INTERNATIONAL RUGBY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 2, 25 September 1937, Page 18

INTERNATIONAL RUGBY

T0URS PENDING BRITAIN FOR SOUTH AFRICA SPRINGBOKS PREPARING The South African Rugby Board is already preparing for the visit; of a British Rugby team next season, writes Philip Power, of Bloefnfontein, in a letter to the Auckland Star. A preliminary programme of 26 matches to be played ajl over South Africa and at Salisbury and Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia and at Luscka, a couple of hundred miles north of the Victoria Falls in Northern- Rhodesia, has been drawn up. The. programme will include three Tests, to be played at Capetown, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. The British" team would be in South Africa from the middle of June to the end of September. : When these plans were submitted to the Rugby Board in England a complaint was made to the South African Board that 26 games .made the programme ioo st'renubus for 29 players. A week's rest before : each Test was demanded and a considerable curtailment of the duratipn of the tour was suggested. , 'uch a curtailment, together with "a rearrangement of the dates of sailing to and departure from South Africa would enable players from the universities to take part in the tour. • Only twenty games should be arrangcd for the team, the British Board - suggested. The South African Board is not in complete agreement with such suggestions and the whole. matter has been left over for furtfier negotiations. - • During the t -u« an international conference on Rugby will be held in South Africa. Invitations will be sent td New Zealand and, Australia to arrange for delegates- to .attend it. Zeller Joins , Selectors. The South African selectors, who picked the present Sprinjbok-team in New Zealand, have been re-elected for the internat-'onal games next season with the exception of Mr. R. H. Barlo w. He has been replaced by Mr. W. C. Zeller, who was. a Springbok wing three-quarter in New Zealand in 1921. Zeller has been • for many

years ah administrator of the game in Natal, the province . he represented when he was a player. The other four selectors are Messrs. W. F. Schreiner, G. Devenish St. Leger, A. F. Markotter, all wise and experienced men, and F. Mellish, who was in New Zealand with the 1921 Springboks. During the present season a haphazard programme of friendly interprovincial games is being played, but the real interest of players and the public is in the Springboks in New Zealand. The writer added that his letter was written the day, after the Wellington game on August 7>; and the success of the Springboks against Taranaki, Auckland, .apd • Wellington had been a pleasarit surprise, because the public were in doubt about the ability of the team. The flood of publicity about the All Blacks was apt to inqrease that nervousness. '