Bok skipper wants 'bridge-building' tour

Wynard Claasen, the man who captained the Springboks rugby team on their divisive and bloody tour of New Zealand in 1981, is calling for a 30th anniversary "bridge-building" tour here.

Claassen, in an interview to be screened on Maori Television's Native Affairs show on Monday, said that to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1981 tour: "We want to go back there after years and call it a kind of bridge-building tour. You know, go back and make contact again and meet the New Zealand people, and they can meet us and see that we are not these bad guys that everybody thought maybe we were."

Claassen's comments come in the wake of huge debate that eventually forced the New Zealand Rugby Union to apologise to Maori players deliberately omitted from tours to South Africa in 1928, 1949 and 1960 because of South Africa's apartheid policies of the time.

Apologies were also issued by the South African Rugby Union and the South African government, which Claassen welcomed. "I think it is good. I agree with that. I have no problems with it. I think it's maybe 30 or 40 years too late."

And now Claassen wants to bury the bad blood from the 81 tour, which saw this nation divided and fighting each other over the morality of the tour. "We never expected the intensity or the magnitude of the tour demonstrators . . . it was huge, and, in a way, it was a frightening experience, to be honest.

"It wasn't nice to see what was happening in New Zealand. I mean, families being split and all that violence [and] we were actually the instigators, it was because of us.

"I think it is maybe good to go back now, from our point of view, apologising in a way and saying . . . we'd like to make friends."

Classen has suggested get-togethers with All Blacks involved in that 1981 tour, as well as hosting functions and meeting and talking to New Zealanders affected by the tour. The South African Rugby Union has also advocated a game between the Springboks and New Zealand Maori next year as way of apologising for the exclusion of Maori players.

* Native Affairs screens at 8.30pm on Monday on Maori Television.

- © Fairfax NZ News