New Zealand rugby was put on notice in more ways than one as a result of the 1921 Springboks tour.
If the First World War was responsible for changing the shape of the world, then the tour, the first among the leading rugby nations after the war, forced change on New Zealand, although in a typical reflection of the conservatism that has marked the game's administration, the changes did not go far enough.
The playing style New Zealand had developed was insular, and, while innovative developments had caught opponents by surprise in the past, the exposure resulted in tactical variations being implemented in response.
In South Africa's case that came from the power of their pack, something that would ultimately haunt New Zealand for 50 years when it was forced to give up its 2-3-2 scrum and conform to the rest of the rugby world. The wing-forward was less problematic. Many of his skills were transferred to the open side flanker without quite the obstructive skills the wing-forward had employed.
But the first experience of hosting a full international tour exposed New Zealand's administration to failures in preparation and embarrassing gaffes such as their treatment of the side when it visited Nelson, and their legal issues resulting from their training camp at Day's Bay in Wellington before the third Test. (See below)
Generally, it appears such incidents were written off to inexperience in hosting such a tour and that seems to have been accepted by the South Africans.
The crowd perched on Athletic Park’s famous Western bank for the tour finale, the third Test in 1921.
Before the third Test, a conference was held between South Africa's touring manager Harold Bennett, the New Zealand Union, represented by president Jim McLeod, Harry Frost and George Slade, and New South Wales management committee member F.J. Herlihy. They met to reach understanding and agreement on aspects of the game's governance and laws to present to the controlling body in Britain. They wanted to break down the dominance the northern countries had over the game by creating an Imperial Board of Control. Each of the British countries and those Dominions where rugby was played would be eligible for affiliation. The move would ensure uniform control of the game, common laws and rulings and encouraging tours for the betterment of the game. They didn't have a lot of luck in the short term.
New Zealand's adoption of the New South Wales kick-into-touch amendment would not be opposed by South Africa as a local variant.
All I can advise my union is that in the action New Zealand is taking it considers it is acting in the best interests of the game. As I have already said, our experience in New Zealand does not bear out the report that has been circulated as to professionalism being rampant.[1]
That point on professionalism was a boost for New Zealand, which, because of the advance of rugby league in Auckland, especially, had been tarred with the professional brush. It was something 1921 All Blacks captain George Aitken ran into the moment he stepped off the ship in London to take up his Rhodes Scholarship. He was subjected to a campaign from the British press which only ended when New Zealand Rugby's London representative Cecil J. Wray took up the matter with authorities.
Speaking at the last official function of the tour, the post-Test banquet in Wellington, manager Bennett, said there had been one or two things that had amused the South Africans during the tour.
You know, we come from a great football country – at least, we think we do. We came to a country which also thinks it is a great football country; but there is a difference: We don't think we are the greatest football country in the world. Up till now New Zealand has. I don't think there is any doubt about that. For the last ten weeks we have had that dinned into us by your speakers, by your newspapers – 'New Zealand is the greatest football country in the world.' Well, all the more honour to us. We will say that you are the greatest football country in the world – we are now your equals.[2]
Bennett said before walking up the gangway to board the Arawa,
This is not a moment when the mind could turn a phrase or the voice utter a sentence that would be adequate to the occasion. We came here, a little heavy in heart, knowing what a big undertaking was before us. New Zealanders have written the name of their country large on the annals of field sports, as they wrote it large on that other and wider field of the struggle for the world's liberty.
We came, and saw New Zealand. But we did not conquer her. A small boy told me New Zealand had beaten us in the test matches. He had added up the total number of points scored in the first and second tests, and his verdict was that New Zealand was as much better than South Africa as eighteenpence (15 cents) was more than one and two-pence (12 cents). You can put our impressions of New Zealanders in half a dozen words: 'Loyal to their country, and its national game. Hospitable to the stranger within the gates. Good losers, clean sports – gentleman [sic].[3]
It had been intended the Springboks would play New South Wales on their way home, but they cabled ahead to cancel the game before leaving New Zealand.
In the tour wrap-up, the New Zealand Rugby Union said it had received an invitation from South Africa and the invitation would be accepted. It was probable a team would be sent in 1923 but it was 1928 before the exchange occurred.
The All Blacks' selectors Alf Griffiths, Donald Stuart and George Nicholson were thanked for their efforts during the tour. Ernie Little said while the selectors had been criticised no one had worked harder than they had.
There could probably be found 999 persons in 1000 who could pick a better team than the selectors had done, but he thought that he was correct in saying that perhaps, with one or two exceptions, the majority of people were in agreement that the selectors had picked the best team possible.[4]
Chairman Slade said he was glad the matter had been brought up.
The selectors had had a difficult task to perform, and had done their work, in a conscientious manner, and had done their utmost to put the best team in the field to uphold Rugby football in New Zealand. When the story was told of the work that had been done there would not be so many kicks.[5]
Earlier, at the post-Test banquet in Wellington, Slade recounted the difficulties the NZRFU had to raise 2000 pounds to send to South Africa to pay the steamer fares for the team to travel to New Zealand. The investment had been worthwhile because the tour had ended as a financial success.
That didn't stop him having a lick at the Press where a section had not given the NZRFU 'a fair run', he said.
There are always two sides to a question, he said. Some reputable journals should get their opinions direct, and not through keyholes.
There has been a lot of abuse thrown about for nothing. Our main duty was to make the tour a success and I am pleased that the visitors are leaving with the knowledge it was a success.[6]
The president of the NZRFU, Jim McLeod said,
The tour has taught us quite a lot and how much we have to learn regarding the government of the game. The game has grown to such an extent, and become a business so big, that it has almost become top heavy for honorary management to control. It required a tour of this kind to teach us how to revise our methods of government. I have no doubt at all that advantage will be taken of the experience gained this year to play New Zealand football under better management, and on a higher plane that it has been in the past.[7]
The New Zealand Times said in its post-tour editorial:
Their team accomplished the extraordinary feat of winning 19 matches out of the 23 played, and of the balance they drew two and they lost two – only two out of the total of 23 [including Australia]. It is a great success, viewed from any angle. Viewed from the angle of New Zealand's pre-eminence in football, the success of the Springboks is phenomenal. They have won almost everything, and they drew in the test rubber.
As was happily remarked after the bell stopped play: 'The best team drew.' This hits the situation exactly. Under the circumstances, which were most unfavourable to the happy completeness so essential to all matches of supreme decision, circumstances which literally scrapped some of the best play in football combination, neither team could use all its trained energies.[8]
The NZ Times said another contest was imperative. That shouldn't be a problem because the two teams had revived impetus in the national game of both countries.
The championship of the great game played better by these two peoples than by any other cannot be left in doubt, and the true sporting spirit or both ought to help the pleasant memories of the war to settle the question…The Springbok tour, we are thus reminded, is practically a great proclamation to the world. It proclaims the close, enthusiastic friendship of two peoples who, two short decades since, were engaged in deadly conflict. Without bitterness, without rancour, without afterthought of any kind, their representatives have met in friendliest rivalry on the athletic field, and parted, after the hardest struggles, in mutual respect.[9]
A month later, McLeod tabled a survey of the administration of rugby in New Zealand that, it was hoped, would help provincial unions cope during future international tours. There had been a lack of co-operation between the NZRFU management committee and the provincial unions.
The unions had been told so little of what they were required to do in hosting the Springboks.
The committee failed to appreciate the extent of the growth of the Rugby game since the tours of 1904 and 1908. Had it foreseen the universal interest the South African tour created, it might have seen the wisdom of calling the representatives of all the union together, and working out in unison the whole of its details.[10]
McLeod said there had also been some resolution in relation to the level of amateurism in the New Zealand game. McLeod said the Springboks manager Harold Bennett had assured him that New Zealand Rugby had stood the test of the closest scrutiny of its methods, the honesty of its amateurism.
There was a belief largely held in South Africa, and he believed, in England, that we were verging on the professional, whatever that might involve and mean. It was satisfactory to know that on Mr Bennett's position assurance the minds of football officials in both countries would be entirely disabused in that respect.[11]
McLeod said New Zealand should also look to re-establish playing relations with Britain and to encourage visits from emerging rugby countries like France but he didn't believe such tours should become an annual event.
The editor of the Wellington Rugby Annual, Dan McKenzie said the Springboks were a better team than the form they had shown on their tour, and he believed that this was because they played for safety rather than developing their tactics to the fullest. New Zealand was not up to the pre-war standard but they had held the fort so that next time the two countries met again New Zealand would have a team capable of upholding the records of the past.
Those tactics can't be under-stated. Some of the rugby must have been turgid. Future editor of New Zealand Sportsman J.M. [Morrie] Mackenzie, then in the early days of his career with The Southland Times, wrote a decade retrospective in 1930 pointing out that during the first Test there were 114 scrums and at one stage he counted five in 60 seconds.[12] [They didn't have, or need, pause-set-engage in those days].
Bennett claimed in Sydney when passing through on the way to South Africa that none of the All Blacks teams fielded in the Tests had been up to the standard of the King's Cup winners after the First World War. South Africa had the better of the Test series, he believed, and they should have won the first Test. The provincial teams were on a par, or slightly better than South Africa's state sides.[13]
What of the players involved? As noted earlier in the series, George Aitken was dropped for the third Test. But taking up his Rhodes Scholarship later in 1921, he went on to play for Scotland. Mackenzie said of him, "…he was a brilliant footballer, as he afterward proved in the famous Scottish three-quarter line of 1924,"[14] and on that basis, Mackenzie named him as his centre in his best All Blacks team from 1921-30. Mark Nicholls, a 19-year-old on debut in 1921, would survive longest, although he varied between first five-eighths and midfield, playing through until 1930. Wing Jack Steel was a regular choice in sides until the 1924-25 tour. Jock Richardson would go from strength to strength. He played outstanding rugby on the 1922 tour of Australia and then when Cliff Porter ruled himself out of consideration for Test matches on the 1924-25 Invincibles tour, he took on the captaincy. Others who survived to make the tour to Britain, Ireland and France, included Ces Badeley, originally named captain for the tour, only for Porter to be appointed the night before the ship left Wellington with the team and loose forward Andrew 'Son' White, who was reinstated after being dropped after his good performance in the first Test and his membership of the ill-fated team that lost to New South Wales. Interestingly, White was the only member of that team who made the 1924-25 tour.
Moke Belliss wasn't so fortunate. It was his bad luck to be appointed captain of the 1922 team who lost a series 1-2 to New South Wales in Australia, and while he played in the return series in 1923, he was injured and his replacement for the third Test, Cliff Porter had an outstanding game in the All Blacks' 38-11, seven tries to two, victory. Although New Zealand won the first Test in 1923, it was a poor performance and Maurice Brownlie and Jimmy Mill were both dropped, although Brownlie did appear in the second Test as a replacement. Alf West came back into the picture during the series.
South Africa's next series was in 1924 when hosting the British & Irish Lions. But, if 1921 was ever regarded as an investment in their future, they hardly had suitable reward and like New Zealand, their personnel by 1924 was significantly changed. Of their 1921 tourists, Frank Mellish and Alf Walker played four Tests against the Lions, Phil Mostert and Nick du Plessis, all forwards, played three Tests while backs Wally Clarkson and Sas de Kock played one Test each.
The Day's Bay training camp exercise had consequences with the New Zealand Rugby Union being taken to the Supreme Court by the owner of the Bay View boardinghouse, Mrs Agatha Downes, for damages and non-payment of money owed for accommodation provided for the All Blacks during their training camp. The NZRU had refused to pay a reasonable amount for the board and lodgings of the team, or to make good damage done to the house and furnishings, she claimed.
Downes' lawyer told the court no definite arrangement had been made on the tariff to be charged and when she complained to Alf Griffiths, the team manager, about the 'very hearty appetites' of the men, he said the Rugby Union would 'do the fair thing by her'.
She said it was not possible to keep the men for the usual tariff when two chops and four eggs were an ordinary breakfast.
Griffiths had replied: 'Give them plenty; the union will pay', a comment he allegedly repeated three times.
She also had issues with cigarette burns on two tables, and on carpets, while the pipes to the septic tank were blocked with bandages and cotton wool that had been put down the toilet. There was also a lingering smell of crayfish thrown around the grounds after a crayfish supper following the Test. That had contributed to Downes' daughter catching diphtheria and her having to close the accommodation for six weeks causing 36 people to have to find alternate accommodation.
The Union paid 168 pounds, based on 11 shillings per man per day, but the accommodation owner claimed 262 pounds which included plumbing expenses to unblock the pipes and septic tank, medical expenses for her daughter, loss of income while the accommodation was close and while the dining-room was in use by the team during their stay.
Having heard the claims and counterclaims, Mr Justice Salmond ruled the Union's payment of 11s a day was insufficient, but that Mrs Downes' claim for 17s 6d was far too high. He allowed the cost at 13s a day, or 195 pounds, with another 3 pounds 8s and 6d for extra costs.
Another interesting sidelight of the tour was the loss of the South African report of the tour. The official report had gone astray in South Africa, and the tour manager, Harold Bennett, who wrote the report, died in a car accident in Kimberley in 1924.
The president of the NZRU, during the 1921 tour, Jim McLeod had remained in contact with Bennett afterwards and McLeod had asked if he could have a copy of the report when it was completed for his own use. The 80-90 page document eventually arrived and, according to McLeod, it had many interesting observations made by Bennett and some good advice about the future arrangement of tours. The NZRU never received an official copy of the report and while McLeod circulated his private copy it was lost, and he was blamed by the NZRU for its loss.
The last I saw of the document was at a big Rugby Council in Wellington, some interested delegate retaining it, with instructions to pass it on to one or two others before sending it back to me. Since then all trace of it has been lost, and I cannot remember who was responsible for its return. No doubt some one took it home with him, relegated it to the bottom of a drawer, [then] promptly forgot all about it. Unfortunately, this copy seems to have been the only one Bennett made, the original being furnished to the S.A. Board. Their copy has also gone astray in the course of its journeyings round the various S.A. Unions for perusal, and it would appear there is now no official report of the tour available at all. I hope the publicity being given to the missing document will jog someone's memory and lead to its recovery. It seems singular that Bennett did not officially send a copy to the NZRU. The latter was aware of this position, and I pointedly drew their attention to this aspect of it only a few weeks ago when following up some possible 'clues', so I've got a grouse now that the Union has allowed the impression to get abroad that I have been responsible for losing an official document.[15]
In summary, Theo Pienaar's men played 19 games in New Zealand. They won 15, lost two and drew two. They scored 244 points with 81 against. While the All Blacks scored 13 points against them, the next highest was nine by Bay of Plenty. Gerhard Morkel was the highest points scorer with 42 points and Zeller topped the try-scoring list with 13 tries, four more than Attie van Heerden. Forward Nick du Plessis played 15 games, five as a flanker, six as a prop, three as a lock and one at No8. Van Heerden played 14 games, the most by a back.
[1] Evening Post, 9 November 1921
[2] Harold Bennett, Springboks' manager, The Evening Post, 19 September 1921
[3] New Zealand Times, 20 September 1921
[4] Ernie Little, New Zealand Times, 30 September 1921
[5] ibid
[6] New Zealand Times, 19 September 1921
[7] Jim McLeod, president of the NZRFU, New Zealand Times, 19 September 1921
[8] ibid
[9] ibid
[10] NZ Times, 24 October 1921
[11] ibid
[12] J M Mackenzie, The Sun (Auckland), 26 July 1930
[13] Bennett, The Referee (Sydney), 28 September 1921
[14] Mackenzie ibid
[15] Jim McLeod, letter to the editor, Manawatu Times, 19 April 1924