7 July 76 - Proteas 3 / All Blacks 25

Match was attended by 10 000 people at Goodwood Oval in Cape Town. The field was wet with overcast weather and occasional rain falling during the game making the ball slippery.

The referee was Ian Gourlay (Natal)

The All Black team: 15: Laurie Mains; 14: Neil Purvis; 11: Terry Mitchell; 13: Bill Osborne; 12: Lyn Jaffray; 10: Doug Bruce; 9: Sid Going; 8: Andy Leslie (Captain); 7: Ken Stewart; 6: Lawrie Knight; 5: Gary Seear; 4: Frank Oliver; 3: Billy Bush; 2: Graeme Grossman; 1: Kerry Tanner.

The Proteas team: 15: Ronnie Louw (Swartland); 14: Eddie Gillion (Southerns); 11: John Noble (Stellenbosch); 13: Charles Williams (Stellenbosch); 12: Hennie Shields (Strand); 10: John Stubbs (Malmesbury); 9: Attie Lategan (Malmesbury); 8: Jack Juries (SWD-Captain); 7: Randy Marinus (Paarl); 6: Hannes Meyer (Northerns); 5: Piet Boonzaaier (Stellenbosch); 4; Louis Paulse (Northerns); 3: Turkey Shields (Strand); 2: Ciscoe Jooste (Swartland); 1: Tom Peterson (Northerns).

Ronnie Louw played for both the Proteas and the President XV (next match) against the All Blacks of 76. Here he is while playing for the President XV.

Run of the game

Before the game incidents/issues/stuff

The match against the coloureds (proteas) was historic as it was the firsts time an All Black team played against a non-white team in South Africa.

Terry McLean starts his pièce on this match with the following:

Cuthbert Loriston, the 63-year-old high school principal who was president of the South African Rugby Football Federation, which fielded the proteas, said that for 300 years his people, the Coloureds, had been treated as sub-human by South African Whites. Coloureds were only permitted to become human by arrangement, he said. (“He was very bitter,” John Stewart remarked.) Well, this was one of the days of arrangement.

It is a sad fact but the white South Africans (definitely me and the people I had contact with in 1976) did not realize how the apartheid situation looked for outsiders. Here, the All Blacks were playing a group of people who in their own country would be regarded as equals and judging by their ability to communicate and the quality of the rugby the played not inferior to anyone else they’ve met on tour. Yet the people were regarded as sub-human and not allowed to play rugby in the provincial championship.

During the game incidents/issues/outstanding moments

McLean and the rest of the Kiwi contingent were impressed with the handeling and technical skills of the two coloured teams that played in the curtain-raiser.

McLean had many good things to say about the Proteas as well but do point out that their approach was probably just a bit to negative; being focused more on spoiling and disrupting rather than playing their own game.

McLean writes:

It was true that the Proteas were negligent about the niceties of keeping on-side. Mr. Ian Gourlay tried by penalty and fatherly advice to dissuade the Proteas from practicing the kind of illegalities which are common in Rugby world over when a team without hope but endless enthusiasm takes on a crack side.

The match against the Proteas was characterized by lots of late tackles. Here a protea player is taking a ride on Laurie Mains' back with the ball nowhere is sight.

The sad feature was that the Proteas had enough ability to play tidy Rugby efficiently and effectively. They were amazingly quick. Eddie Gillion and Charles Williams moved to quell those attacks by Osborne and Purvis with shattering speed. Ronnie Louw behind them was genuinely quick, too, and as fullback would be greeted with joy by many New Zealand provincial selectors.

Piet Boonzaaier and Louis Paulse, the locks, won about two-thirds of the completed lineouts, while Ciscoe Jooste, though beaten 4-0 in the tighthead count, made many heels at admirable speed.

Randy Marinus on the side of the scrum was quite remarkably quick, too, and if Lategan didn’t persist after Super Sid, he did. In short the Proteas, having average speed superior to both border and Eastern Province, needed no more than coolness and confidence –for which qualities one could perhaps substitute discipline- to become a team capable of competing in the second division of the provincial championship with more success than most.

Mains missed penalties from 23 and 41 meters away but by the good fortune that the Proteas committed too many late tackles and other acts of negligence, Mains was able to place 5 penalty goals. The All Blacks won the lineouts 19-12, the rucks 14-5, the scrum 16-12 (including four tightheads) and the penalties 15-9.

Lawrie Knight busrting free in the Proteas match

The Proteas’ style of swarming and amazingly swift defence was deucedly difficult to combat and the All Blacks were able to score only two tries namely by Jaffray in the 43rd and by Mitchell in the 79th minutes, respectively.

Here is McLean description of the two tries:

Mitchell’s try on the left was made after a long plunging burst by Stewart placed the defence under such strain that a smart nipping run on the blindside by Bruce put Mitchell well clear of Noble and Louw.

The other try was the beter of the two. Osborne threaded between Williams and Gillion and when he saw that Purvis outside him was well covered and too close to touch, he twisted his torso by maybe 120 degrees and made a pass back to Jaffray to his left. Jaffray was untroubled to skid through.

Lyn Jaffray scoring against the Proteas with Ronnie Louw and Clive Noble too late to stop him.

Terry Mitchell scores in the 79th minute of the match.

Louw missed with a penalty from 31 meter

After the game reactions/occurrences

There were some pursed lips among the All Blacks’ leaders as they cogitated about the game. Jaffray’s thrust into the midfield defence wanted the speed which ought to have carried him past the centers and right up to Louw before he passed to Osborne. Osborne, too, did not make his thrusts with quite sufficient speed. The concern was mounting in the leadership that the All Blacks were short of true international quality in the midfield, according to McLean.