30 June 2009
This year’s Qantas Wallabies tour of South Africa is infused with the spirit of ’69.
When the Qantas Wallabies take on South Africa at the start of their Tri-Nations rugby campaign in August, a group of former players will be especially enthusiastic supporters. It is 40 years since the 1969 Wallabies took on the Springboks at the same Newlands ground in Cape Town. To commemorate this, the team is going back for an extraordinary reunion tour.
“With partners, there will be 34 of us,” says Bruce Taafe, a hooker in the 1969 team. “That includes 19 of the original team. We’ve lost four of them over the years, but we’ll have enough there for a team plus reserves, which is pretty good all these years on.”
In 1969, rugby was strictly amateur. Players earned a dollar a day to cover out-of-pocket expenses, playing for the love of it. As a consequence many could not afford to stay long in the game, financial pressures pushing them to rugby league or retirement.
“We were a very young side, most of us in our early 20s,” Taafe says. “We didn’t really have the experience or bulk to handle a very good South African team. We lost the four tests – although we should have won at least one of them.”
For a side with a less distinguished record than some that preceded it, this year’s 40-year anniversary tour is a rather remarkable event. “I don’t know why we have stuck as we have,” Taafe says. “Maybe because we were so young. Maybe because the tour was so enjoyable, or because we fought harder and got closer than we should have. When this trip was suggested the response was amazing.”
In 1969, the world was a different place. One highlight of that trip was huddling around a radio (South Africa was yet to get television) and listening as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon. This year’s Wallabies reflect the change that time brings. The game is more physical than it was, the players full-time professionals, fitter and better skilled. But the talent remains much the same.
“In our day we were more amateur than anybody else and it showed,” Taafe says. “The modern Wallabies work at it full-time and have the same focus as other nations. They can compete on even terms.”
There are similarities between the eras. The current Wallabies are essentially young and rebuilding, and the Newlands test is a significant benchmark for them against the current world champions. South Africa was also on top of the pile in 1969.
“They didn’t have a World Cup to measure the best in the world,” Taafe says. “But the ’Boks of that time had beaten the British and Irish Lions the previous year, and beat the All Blacks the year after we left. They were unofficial world champions.”
Today’s teams compete in an environment in part fashioned by the 1969 Wallabies. Several members of that team declined to back up against the Springboks when they toured Australia in 1971, amid growing world protests against the South African government’s apartheid policies. It proved a substantial trigger in the eventual dismantling of the country’s race-based policies.
The reunion trip will have other improvements. In 1969, the Qantas V-Jet Boeing 707 had to refuel in Perth and Mauritius to cross the Indian Ocean. This time, the QF63 747 will take one hop. The team won’t have to be up the next morning for training, either.
Source: Qantas The Australian Way July 2009