Billy Bush whingeing yet again about unfair treatment by the boks

In an article by Michael Brown regarding Maori being unfairly treated by not being allowed to tour to South Africa he has the following on Billy Bush. 

Billy Bush is adamant he was unfairly targeted in a decision that cost the All Blacks victory against South Africa in 1976 – because he was Maori. 

It was in the last minute of the fourth and final test at the end of the long tour of the Republic when South African referee Gert Bezuidenhout blasted on his whistle and awarded a penalty for the home side for an infringement in the lineout. Bezuidenhout identified Bush as the culprit. 

The big prop was incredulous but his protestations mattered little as Gerald Bosch kicked the penalty to hand South Africa a 15-14 victory and a 3-1 series win. 

He feels now he was pinpointed because he had been deliberately provocative throughout the tour, trying to get up the nose of the establishment who clearly resented the presence of a brown player in apartheid South Africa. 

“The refs cheated,” Bush says. “We should have drawn the series, for sure. 

“They couldn’t get me on the paddock – I got roughed up a little bit but it didn’t hurt – but that last penalty went against me for obstruction in the lineout. 

I was nowhere near the ball. 

“I was bitter about being blamed for the last penalty. They very definitely got me in the end because they targeted me in particular. When you look back at the game, I never did anything. I am still brassed off about it.” 

Fact is Billy Bush went through that whole tour acting off as the tough man in the AB team. He was definitely out to irk, irritate and offend the South Africans. 

A little further in the article Brown writes: 

Throughout the tour, Bush was provocative. He invited black girls to official functions to aggravate Afrikaners saying they were “Maori girls from Rotorua”. He repeatedly made his way into the hotel kitchens to meet the black workers, ventured to East London to mingle with blacks despite knowing it was frowned on, and went to white areas at night to defy the curfew which forbade non-whites in the city at night. 

“I went out of my way to be deliberately provocative,” Bush says. “I was darker than the other players and always had it in the back of my mind that it was not their favourite colour in South Africa. There were many incidents on and off the field.

“The South Africans were out to get me in every game. But I hated them, too. The game in Upington [when the All Blacks beat North-West Cape Invitation XV 34-17] was the worst for thuggery. But I wasn’t prepared to stand back. A lot of it was self- defence. She was pretty rough at times. They were blatantly out to get me.” 

In the end Bush got what he was asking for and now he’s still unhappy about the treatment he received. The treatment he got had nothing to do with skin colour or him being a Maori but everything with his behaviour on tour. 

Bryan Williams was also on that controversial tour and had the following to say about Billy Bush and him being targeted: 

“I wasn’t aware at the time that Billy was targeted but generally the decisions went against us because apartheid was at its height back then and the Afrikaner nation had to be seen to be superior.” 

I will agree with the first part but the second part is just plain rubbish. The Afrikaner had no need to be superior to the Kiwi’s because there was Maori in the team. 

Absolute bullshit. 

I am an Afrikaner too and lived and breathed rugby; reading about and listening to every match. I wasn’t even aware that Bush was a Maori neither did it bother me or matter that Williams was a Samoan. 

Williams was one of my All Black hero’s and so was he for most other white/afrikaners rugby supporters at the time. We saw him as an All Black from New Zealand and that was the case with Billy Bush as well. The rest was irrelevant. Bush got a hard time because he provoked it. 

Williams goes on and make the following statement about referees: 

“The referee who awarded that penalty [against Bush] came and saw us off from the airport the following day,” Williams remembers. “We had him on about not only that decision but a lot of them he made throughout the tour. 

“He said to us, ‘listen boys, you can go to your home, I have to live here’. 

Now this is not the first time that I hear or read this and clearly they believe that Bezuidenhout admitted with those words that he cheated; admits that he cheated because he was instructed to or because the Afrikaners could not lose to a side that contained Maori. 

Now I want to provide a little of a different perspective on that statement. I don’t believe it was an admittance of guilt at all. It was a tongue in cheek remark. Also, it was more a case of, I had enough of this, these guys are leaving, I’ll just say something to pacify them and get them off my case. If you torture somebody long enough he will admit. The media and All Blacks have been going on about the referee cheating since the second match of that tour. Leslie spoke about it and the need for independent referees in the post-fourth-test-match-function and I believe Bezuidenhout just reached a point where he had been bullied and scrutinized and critiqued to such an extend that he stopped to even try and defend his actions and rather opted to making some sort of a joke or tongue in cheek remark about it. 

The fact that they hammer so on this remark and can’t see it for what it was just shows how desperate this 1976 team were to provide some explanation for their poor performances. As a team they underperformed because of many reasons including injuries, poor team selections, lack of depth in key positions, poor management and coaching as well as interpersonal clashes between team members and lack of leadership and discipline. The refereeing wasn’t perfect but as a team they didn’t deserve to draw the series. The bottom line was they were just not good enough. 

Coming back to the Maori issue. Most South Africans had no idea how many Maori were on tour. 

There were five Maori in that touring side: Bush, Sid Going, Kent Lambert, Bill Osborne and Tane Norton. 

I’ve been living in New Zealand for eight year now and I can tell from personal experience that it is pretty hard to distinguish Maori from Europeans. In fact I was surprised to learn that Sid Going and Tane Norten as well as Kent Lambert were Maori. 

Did it change my opinion of them after reading that recently? 

Not at all. 

Would it have made a difference how I viewed them in 1976? 

Not at all. 

I want to state it here that the Afrikaner Maori issue never existed. It was all in the minds of the Maori but we as South Africans in 1976 wasn’t even aware that such an issue existed. 

Brown goes on in his article and explains how Bush was pressurised by Maori anti-tour activist to not go on tour. He writes: 

They were central characters throughout, even before the tour left these shores, and Bush said he came under pressure from activists like Trevor Richards and John Minto to pull out of the tour. 

“It affected me hugely,” Bush says. “Richards and Minto were on my case about going to South Africa. But I had busted my guts to train. I had run around the hills [of Christchurch] in cold southerlies. My aim was to go around the world with the All Blacks because I wouldn’t do it otherwise. 

“I wasn’t aware of what was going on in South Africa at the time but people tried to stop me from going. I worked at the freezing works in Belfast and the union kicked me out. I said I didn’t care because I wanted to find out what it was like myself. I believe I contributed to the tearing down of apartheid in South Africa by being Maori and not signing on as an honorary white.” 

Even as the All Blacks left country, they had to be driven over the tarmac to the plane at Auckland airport for their own safety. They then weren’t allowed to land in Australia, meaning they travelled via the US, Athens, Lisbon and Abuja. 

Clearly, Bush felt pressurized; almost obliged to make some sort of statement that would show that he was against Apartheid; that he was taking on the enemy. He was trying to impress these activist back home with his actions. He was playing for the pavilion and everybody knew it and roughed him up because of it. 

There was no racial issue to it, as far as I can remember. Why would he be targetted while photo’s of Going and Williams will apear in every article about the tour. You could order enlarged pictures of Bryan Williams such was the extend of his support. No no such deals existed for any of the Springbok rugby players. I know because I was sampling rugby pictures at the time and ordered one of Bryan Williams and would have ordered such poster pictures of Springboks if available; none were. 

Brown goes on and writes: 

It was during that journey that All Blacks coach JJ Stewart brought up the issue of the haka. He said to Bush the South Africans didn’t want them to do it. Bush said: “We’re doing the haka or going home.” 

They did the haka. 

Now I don’t know about this. South Africans not wanting them to do the Haka and Bush being the HERO who stepped-up and decided THEY WILL DO THE HAKA. 

Yeah right. Talk about being THE MAN and hero worship. 

Damn I was there I sampled every article and listened to everything on the tour but somehow missed all this about South Africans not wanting to see the Haka and Bush being THE MAN. 

I scrutinised McLean’s book “Goodbye to glory” about the 1976 tour and will keep on doing so as I proceed with my description of the 1976 tour but so far I’ve not seen anything about this in his book. 

Here is Sid Going’s recall of the 1970 and 1976 tours: 

“For me, it had nothing to do with that political rubbish,” Going says. “We were just glad to be playing. It was a wonderful tour. The hospitality was absolutely fantastic. Me and Bryan Williams were treated better then most, probably, because we were there and everyone in the back of the grandstand, every coloured person, took to us.” 

No mister Going every rugby lover in South Africa white, coloured, Indian or black took to you and Bryan because you were a delight to watch. 

For us it didn’t and still doesn’t matter that you were Maori. We were just glad to have you. That applies to every single member of that All Black squad including Billy Bush.