When Bill Bush felt racially targeted

Bill Bush says in his new book he was singled out as a ‘darker skinned’ All Black on the controversial 1976 tour of South Africa.

’’Being dark-skinned, it was becoming obvious . . . that every game I was selected to play in would likely involve a bit of biff, with the white South Africans blatantly out to get me.’’

Māori prop Bill Bush says he felt racially targeted by rivals, referees and officials on the All Blacks’ tour to apartheid-era South Africa in 1976.

Bush makes the revelations in his new book, Billy Bush: A Front Row View on Life, which is being launched in Christchurch tonight.

The 12-test front rower said a meat workers union official threatened him with the sack from the Belfast freezing works if he joined the 1976 tour, but ‘‘my workmates got behind me with a notice that read, ‘If Bill Bush is not reinstated when he comes home from South Africa, then the union secretary is fired’.’’

Bush – now 74 and a New Zealand Māori Rugby Board life member – said he ‘‘decided to be deliberately provocative towards the apartheid regime’’ while in South Africa.

He was ‘‘glad I went and believe I played a part in undermining apartheid in South Africa by being Māori and not signing on as an ‘Honorary White’ as All Blacks in 1970 had to’’.

On arrival in South Africa, Bush got ‘‘the impression that [non-white people] were being kept out of the way, so they’d have no contact with us’’.

He and centre Bruce Robertson ‘‘started sneaking into the kitchen to hand out a few [silver fern] pins to black and coloured workers.

Samoan wing Bryan Williams and Bush accepted home visit invitations from coloured South Africans who ‘‘wanted their story heard about what the apartheid regime had been doing to them.’’

The South African authorities frowned on Bush’s fraternisation with black and coloured people.

They told All Blacks coach J J Stewart, ‘‘that I was only there to play rugby, and that my walkabout visits needed to be reined in’’.

‘‘They must have had their goons tailing me,’’ Bush said.

Later in the tour, Bush had to curtail his ‘‘efforts to spend time in forbidden areas with Coloured and Black South Africans’’ after Stewart feared the All Blacks would have to go home if the South African Rugby Union complained further. ‘‘I swallowed my pride and I tried to comply, but it was bloody awful,’’ Bush wrote.

Bush felt, because of his race, he was targeted by the white establishment press and by rivals and referees on the field.

Rapport, an Afrikaner Sunday paper, labelled him ‘‘the meanie no Springbok could hope to tame’’, a ‘‘dirty player’’ and ‘‘a hatchet man, kicker, gouger, scratcher and biter’’.

‘‘Being dark-skinned, it was becoming obvious, even at this early stage, that every game I was selected to play in would likely involve a bit of biff, with the white South Africans blatantly out to get me. I was not wrong. Mind you, I gave as good as I got, and a bit more when I was targeted.’’

The Canterbury frontrower’s book details a number of violent incidents in matches where offences against the All Blacks went unpunished.

Some of the ‘‘worst thuggery’’ came in a match against the North-West Cape Invitation XV where Bush inadvertently ‘‘walloped the referee’’.

He said the opposition ‘‘turned to more and more violent tactics’’ in the second half.

‘‘I was prepared to meet fire with fire. But one punch-up – basically an all-in-brawl in the forwards – resulted in me accidentally walloping the referee. We were having a dingdong go when he made the mistake of grabbing me by the shoulder. In the heat of battle I spun around and let him have it

fair on the whistle, which was in his mouth.’’

Alan Sutherland, captaining the All Blacks, told Bush: ‘‘You’ve gone now, you dopey bastard!’’, but referee Schubel O’Reilly didn’t order him off. The NorthWest Cape captain, ‘‘speaking in Afrikaans, told O’Reilly that I had been provoked’’.

Bush had the ‘‘distinct impression’’ from his first tour game that match officials were against the All Blacks.

An Eastern Province player ‘‘illegally picked the ball out of our second row to score’’ before the referee ‘‘penalised us seven times in 10 minutes. To me it was obvious we were playing 16 men. Basically, he was a bloody cheat,’’ Bush said.

Bush at one point played nine consecutive games and was selected for the fourth test ‘‘in the cauldron of Ellis Park’’ where an All Blacks win would square the series.

He remains sore that referee Gert Bezuidenhout denied the All Blacks a penalty try after Robertson was ‘‘grabbed around the shoulders in an illegal tackle. Hell, even Dr Danie Craven, the president of the South African Rugby Board, said that night it should have been a penalty try’’.

Bush remains ‘‘still brassed off’’ at being penalised at a late lineout when he was ‘‘nowhere near the ball’’, which allowed South Africa to kick a goal and clinch a 15-4 victory and a 3-1 series win.

‘‘On the field I made a comment to the All Blacks around me that I still stand by. ‘What do you think they penalised me for? The ball went down the back. It must be because I am not their favourite colour’’.

‘‘I hadn’t done anything wrong, other than being brown on a tour where several of the referees, like Bezuidenhout, cheated’’.

Bush was so convinced the All Blacks ‘‘should have squared the series’’ that he boycotted the aftermatch function.

He said Bezuidenhout came to farewell the All Blacks at Johannesburg Airport next day and told them ‘‘Listen boys. You can go to your home, but I have to live here!’’