Book review: The Pioneers
The Pioneers. The first Springbok rugby tour to Australia & New Zealand 1921 is written by Hans Saestad, a Johannesburg school principal, the author of this splendid addition to rugby history, his third book on a rugby tour and a most interesting book, comprehensive and with lively illustrations incorporated into the text. It is a book to admire.
That first contact between Springboks and All Blacks ended in a drawn series and the toast ‘Till we meet again’.
It was a start of the greatest international rivalry in rugby. It was also the start of rugby contact between South Africa and Australia which then was a game played mainly in New South Wales.
This book starts with the background, the trials, the selection and the voyage as 29 players and a manager set out on their six-month Odyssey and ends with the drawn third test. In between there is a report of every one of the 24 matches – five in Australia and then 19 in New Zealand. But there is much more than the matches.
There are pen pictures of the Springboks and the All Blacks with caricatures of the Springboks’ taken from DC Boonzaaier’s rare book Die Springbok in Nu-Seeland/The Springboks in New Zealand.
There are playing statistics. There is the strange situation of captaincy as Theo Pienaar, the captain, did not play in the tests but venerable Boy Morkel captained the Test team well over the age of 36. And there is the start of the horrors of racial distinction in rugby between South Africa and New Zealand which reached a climax in the upset of the 1981 tour.
This all started with an irresponsible telegram from a newsman CWF Blackett in a cable back to South Africa after the Springboks’ match with the Maori. The report amongst other things spoke of the spectacle of “Europeans” supporting a “band of coloured men”. The cable caused uproar in New Zealand. In 1937, 16 years later, the Springboks did not play the Maori and it was only in 1970 that Maori were allowed to tour South Africa at All Blacks.
The preface to the book is written by Wynand Claassen, captain of the 1981 team, and in it he says: “Well done, Hans! This book tells you everything you want to know about the 1921 tour and the ample illustrations make it even more special.”
Well done, Hans, indeed. He has had just 100 copes printed and is looking to distribute them himself.
E-mail address: hanz@absamail.co.za
Phone: 082 5562245
Title: The Pioneers. The first Springbok rugby tour to Australia & New Zealand 1921
By Hans Saestad
Published by the author
160 pages
Hard cover
2011
Illustrated throughout in colour
ISBN 978-0-620-51559-7
