Abstract
South African rugby went from being a student of the game around the turn of the century to achieving full and equal status on the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) in 1958. This process lasted more than half a century and included, among other things, three Imperial Rugby Conferences, regular dealings with the governing bodies in New Zealand and Australia, diplomatic missions to Britain, and several failed schemes aimed at representation. Important, too, was the effect of internal politics as nationalist Afrikaners steadily gained control over white South African rugby – and the country at large – from the 1940s onward. This article explores the political strategies and diplomatic efforts of the South African Rugby Football Board (SARFB) to achieve full status on the IRFB. In doing so, it sheds light on the inner workings of rugby administration in the country, the interrelation of sport and politics, as well as the role played by the South Africans in the complex network of international rugby relations during the first half of the 20th century.
Contribution: This article contributes to South Africa’s sports history by examining its role in international rugby relations during the first half of the 20th century. Through an analysis of how the sport was administered and governed during this era, both locally and in relation to the rest of the rugby-playing world, we can better understand the complexities of rugby administration and colonial era sporting relations.
Keywords: South Africa; rugby; rugby administration; rugby governance; international relations.
International relations in the rugby world
Today, World Rugby is the international governing body of rugby union. The organisation describes itself as ‘a global movement comprising more than 500 million fans and 10 million players’, with the aim ‘to grow rugby by making it more relevant and accessible, with a vision of a global sport for all, true to its values’.1 The presidency of World Rugby is highly coveted, not least because of the prestige and influence attached to the position.
In World Rugby’s most recent presidential election in 2020, the two candidates were England’s Bill Beaumont and Argentina’s Augustín Pichot. Beaumont, a former England and British and Irish Lions captain, represented the old guard of the rugby establishment and he had the backing of the European nations. Pichot, meanwhile, had the support of SANZAAR (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Argentina) and he campaigned for ‘more radical measures to shake up the sport’.2 In the media, it was described as an ‘election fought on the north-south divide, the traditionalist Beaumont against the revolutionary Pichot, the dinosaur versus the dynamo’.3 Beaumont narrowly won the election by 28–23, prompting his opponent to quit World Rugby.
This struggle for control between old and new, north and south, is not an unfamiliar sight in the history of rugby’s global governance. The International Rugby Football Board (IRFB), the forerunner to World Rugby, was established in 1886 to be the ultimate authority on the rules of the game and to govern international matches between the four home unions. It happened on the back of a controversial English victory over Scotland 2 years earlier. The Scots, with the support of Ireland and Wales, argued that the dispute should be judged by a neutral party. England’s Rugby Football Union (RFU), who deemed itself to be the highest body of the sport, was ‘not prepared to allow such an overt challenge to its authority’.4 It was only after a ruling by independent arbitrators in 1890 – that the IRFB should be solely responsible for the rules of the game, and that England should have six representatives versus the two each of the other nations – that the RFU agreed to join. Since any changes to rules required a 75% majority vote, the RFU managed to keep control of the governance of rugby union.5
Over the course of the ensuing 68 years, the IRFB’s power over international rugby was challenged at several intervals. As the sport grew from strength to strength in the imperial territories of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, there was sustained pressure from the southern hemisphere unions to obtain some sort of meaningful representation in the international governance of the game, the ultimate prize being a seat around the IRFB-table. Full status on the IRFB was important to the southern hemisphere unions for a number of reasons, most notably because it meant recognition as equal partners in the global rugby fraternity, and it would allow them to have a say in the development of the game.
This article, in explaining South Africa’s journey to full status on the IRFB, challenges the common conception of white South African rugby being loyal towards British control throughout the first half of the 20th century. While the loyalties of the South African Rugby Football Board (SARFB) rested firmly in London around the turn of the century, friction developed in 1910 and relations started fraying. From the 1920s onward, South Africa, like New Zealand and Australia, was increasingly desirous of having a stake in the international administration of the sport. The major difference between the administrators of South African rugby on the one hand, and those governing the game in New Zealand and Australia on the other, was their contrasting views on how to achieve that goal. Whereas the New Zealanders and Australians followed a revolutionary approach, the South Africans espoused an evolutionary and cautious approach.
The efforts of the three southern hemisphere unions’ to obtain international recognition have been the subject, either direct or indirect, of several academic inquiries in recent years. In A Social History of English Rugby Union, Tony Collins describes international rugby relations during the latter years of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century within the context of the British empire. While the process through which the southern hemisphere nations gained representation on the IRFB is broadly outlined, the particular focus is on the contentious issue of interchangeable nationalities of players during this era.6 Elsewhere, Collins also explores Anglo-Australian rugby relations before the Second World War, finding that the Australians were more deferential to England than it is often believed.7 As far as New Zealand is concerned, Greg Ryan discusses the country’s efforts to gain representation in the global governance of the game during the inter-war period. By looking at the divisions within New Zealand rugby and its changing attitudes during this time, he explains that there was a retreat from nationalist positions and a subsequent embrace of empire.8
In the literature on South African rugby history, only one work studies in some depth the issue of international relations. In World Champions: The Story of South African Rugby, Jonty Winch gives a broad overview of white South African rugby’s relationship with the IRFB during the first half of the 20th century. Although the efforts of the SARFB to gain international representation are outlined, the narrative stands mostly separate from the socio-political context in which it occurred. The governing body’s inner workings are also skimmed over and its evolving approach to international relations goes unanalysed as the discussion largely revolves around players’ interchangeable national identities during this era.9
As much as Winch provides some answers on how South Africa made it onto the IRFB, it leaves a few important questions – what was the South African attitude towards the British control of rugby and its own representation on international level, respectively, and how and why did this change over time; what political strategies did the SARFB employ to obtain international representation, and what role did it play in the southern hemisphere’s push for full status on the IRFB; and importantly, what influence did South Africa’s internal politics have on its efforts to gain a stake in rugby’s global governance? These questions will guide this article’s exploration of South Africa’s journey to full status on the IRFB.
Before this is done, an important distinction must however be made. When the SARFB was established in 1889, its purpose was to govern the game as played by whites. While rugby was also played and supported with enthusiasm in black communities since the arrival of the sport roughly two decades earlier, such as in the coloured and Malay communities of Cape Town and among the Xhosa-people of the eastern Cape, late 19th-century South Africa did not allow for black and white to mix on the sporting field or in its boardrooms.10 As a result, in 1897 the South African Coloured Rugby Football Board (SACRFB) was called into life to administer the game for black South Africans. The game splintered even further when a second body, the South African Bantu Rugby Board (SABRB), was established in 1936.11
Despite several parallels that can be drawn between the SARFB and SACRFB during their early years, such as the delegates of both being drawn from the higher social classes, and both having strong ties to the colonial establishment, there are major differences. Apart from the obvious racial divide, one is that the SARFB as an organisation and white rugby in general experienced steady growth over the next few decades – greatly assisted by regular contact with British rugby around the turn of the century – while the SACRFB and black rugby developed at a considerably slower pace. A second difference, and important to this article, is the SARFB’s institutional involvement in the global rugby network throughout the 20th century, while the authorities of black rugby largely stood outside of the sport’s international community. Snyders writes how the SACRFB’s early efforts to gain recognition ended in disappointing failure.12 This (perhaps more than just) suggests that the white SARFB’s counterparts in the rest of the rugby playing world were equally as unprepared for and undesirous of contact with black South African rugby. For the reason of this being by and large an organisational history of early 20th-century international rugby relations, the focus here will thus be on the white SARFB. More work certainly needs to be done on the history of black rugby in South Africa. To investigate South Africa’s journey to full status on the IRFB, this article will follow a chronological approach.
1906–1939: ‘They should respect age and not try to force the old man’
The first all-white Springbok rugby team was still touring the British Isles in 1906–1907 when the New South Wales Rugby Union (NSWRU), the de facto governing body of rugby union in Australia, contacted their South African counterparts about the issue of the game’s global governance. In a letter to the SARFB, the Australians noted how ‘the time has arrived when an Imperial Council or Board should be appointed to control the game of Rugby Football’.13 This envisaged body would give representation to the four home unions, as well as New South Wales, Queensland, New Zealand, Vancouver and South Africa. By being the ‘final legislative authority and court of appeal for the Empire’, it would replace the IRFB – and by implication also the RFU – as rugby’s highest body. The SARFB was cautious in its response. ‘[This] Board considers the proposal to be premature and that steps should first be taken to obtain representation on the Committee of the English Union to which colonial unions are now affiliated’.14 South Africa had no interest in upending British control of world rugby as its loyalties rested firmly with the RFU.15
In the years before the First World War, relations between the two bodies started fraying. During the 1910 British tour to South Africa, William Cail’s management of the visiting team led to a considerable financial loss for the SARFB, while the hosts were also unhappy with the British team using ‘rough play tactics’ to get the upper hand in matches. On the return tour in 1912–1913, Cail’s ‘ill-judged and discourteous’ correspondence about arrangements offended the South Africans, and they were also disillusioned to learn that their affiliation to the RFU lacked any real substance.16 The SARFB did not necessarily feel entitled to a vote on the RFU, but the notion developed that ‘the time had arrived when the scheme for the formation of some higher body than the English Union should be considered’.17 Although the loyalties of the South Africans did not necessarily shift, it was being questioned.
The First World War had a unifying effect on international rugby, largely owing to the joint ‘blood sacrifice’ made by the different nations of the British empire.18 Watts Moses writes how the ‘ever widening contacts and friendships between the mother Country and her Colonies’ that happened as a result of the war, led to:
[M]ore frequent exchanges of Rugby tours, from which arose a keen desire by the Colonial Unions to take a greater share in the management of the game and any revision of its laws.19
Moreover, the 1919 King’s Cup brought together for the first time the empire’s major rugby-playing nations, albeit in the form of teams consisting of servicemen awaiting their journeys home.20 The tournament, which the New Zealanders won, showed that the standard of play in the imperial territories has improved to such a level that it rivalled, if not surpassed, that of the home unions. The success of the southern hemisphere nations on their respective tours to the British Isles in the mid-1900s already suggested this. Their having mastered the sport would become a major motivation behind their push for international representation from the 1920s onward. Another contributing factor was their desire to have a say in the making of the sport’s rules in order to confront the popularity of professional rugby league, which was an acute threat to the popularity of the union game in New Zealand and Australia specifically.21
A third factor was the changing political landscape of the post-war British empire. The series of Imperial Conferences that were held in the years following the war, attended by leaders of the major nations of the empire, led to greater political autonomy for imperial territories. The 1926 Imperial Conference resulted in the Balfour Declaration, which proclaimed that Britain and the dominions were self-governing nations of equal status, ‘united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations’.22 This development, Collins writes, ‘could not fail to have found a sympathetic response from rugby administrators in the southern hemisphere’.23
These unions’ push for international recognition in the 1920s did, however, not mirror the success of their respective governments. During this decade, they made three official attempts to have a greater say in international rugby, namely a proposal for rule changes in 1920 and claims to seats on the IRFB at the two Imperial Rugby Conferences of 1924 and 1926, respectively. The 1920-petition was drawn up by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) and supported by Australia, but not South Africa. It asked for the amendment of 13 rules related to the playing laws, the game’s strict amateur regulations, and the issue of dominion representation on the IRFB. Being the conservative body that it was, ‘the IRFB flatly rejected every proposal aside from granting an Australasian dispensation to ban [direct] kicking to touch from outside the 25-yard line’.24
After continued pressure from New Zealand, the IRFB agreed to convene an Imperial Rugby Conference in December 1924. In preparation for the conference, the SARFB met in November to establish its position towards the matter of dominion representation. The SARFB-president Jack Heyneman confirmed the body’s acceptance of the status quo when he said that:
[H]e felt that the game was a British game; if others adopted it and wished to alter it, let them do so in their own homes, but do not let them dictate to the parent body.25
The South Africans’ loyalty to British control was reinforced when it supported the IRFB-decision to not invite France to the conference. Although one or two provincial representatives were in favour of the New Zealand proposals for rule changes and international representation for the dominions, the majority opinion in the SARFB was strongly opposed to it.26 Understanding the nature of the international board, Heyneman pre-empted the end-result of the upcoming conference:
Those suggestions were absolutely revolutionary… At this Conference now the Home Unions will not have these revolutionary alterations and in a sense the Conference will have no effect, it might on a few minor points, but these revolutionary suggestions had no hope. The four Unions might not even give us a vote and we do not want it. We have supported the English Union as much as any other country, and we do not want to upset things – it is not our nature.27
The SARFB’s two delegates, R.P. Fitzgerald and V.H. Cartwright, were instructed to abstain from voting on all matters. The loyal South Africans clearly did not want to overturn the status quo. They did, however, play the role of intermediary when the issue of international representation came up. After the IRFB again shot down the matter, it was proposed by Fitzgerald, in an attempt to find an agreeable middle way, that an Imperial Rugby Football Advisory Board be created on which the home unions and dominions would be represented.28 This was unanimously accepted at the time, but the IRFB backtracked in 1925 when it decided that this body would be too much of a concession and that it would, instead, rather convene an Imperial Rugby Conference in London every 3 years at which dominions could be directly represented.29
Little action was taken to make this reality. When it was discussed again in 1926, the RFU suggested that another conference be held where the establishment of an Imperial Advisory Board be discussed. It would appear that the English Union, while not prepared to let go of its stake in the control of international rugby, was at least in favour of minor concessions, even if just to appease the southern hemisphere unions. Contrastingly, the IRFB’s complete lack of action with regard to the matter of dominion representation is indicative of the ultra-conservative attitude of especially the Scottish and Irish unions. J.B. Moore, the Irish representative at the 1924 conference, claimed that:
[I]t is a game born in the British Isles and it is our game. I do not think any foreigners should interfere with our game in any way. I think the control and making of our games should be in our hands.30
In the run-up to the 1926 Imperial Rugby Conference, the SARFB’s attitude towards international representation changed. In a special meeting that was organised to discuss a letter in which the NZRFU stipulated its plans for obtaining international representation, several comments hinted at a growing desire in South Africa to have a say in the game’s global governance. In reply to the New Zealanders, the SARFB wrote that:
This Board expresses its keen disappointment the [IRFB] has decided against the establishment of an Imperial Advisory Board as agreed to at the Imperial Rugby Conference on Dec. 12, 1924. This Board, while not entirely agreeing with the suggestions contained in the letter of the [NZRFU], and with the decision of the [IRFB] of March 20th, accepts a conference as suggested therein at which it will again press for the establishment of an Imperial Advisory Board.31
Collins’ description of the 1924 Imperial Rugby Conference as a ‘damp squib’ is perhaps even more applicable to that of 1926.32 On the one side was the IRFB, as resistant to change as ever, and on the other, the three southern hemisphere unions set on attaining a voice for themselves, albeit with slightly different approaches. The latter’s hopes were squashed even before the conference started, with the IRFB stating in a telegram to the SARFB in October that ‘Advisory Board outside scope of invitation not placed on agenda’.33 When proceedings commenced on 13 November, proposals relating to the Advisory Board were ruled out of order and were not officially discussed.34 Moreover, delegates were also forbidden from speaking to the media about any of the conference’s talking points.35 Where the IRFB made known its opposition to change at the 1924 Imperial Rugby Conference, the point was repeated in near dictatorial fashion in 1926.
The southern hemisphere unions’ reactions to this disappointment are revealing. The NZRFU, who arguably strove hardest for international representation, voiced its frustration in a scathing statement at its next annual meeting:
It is a cardinal principle of democracy that a governing body should be fully representative of those who are governed; but it would appear that our fellow-sportsmen in the Old Land require a little more enlightenment on these lines before an Imperial Board will come into force in rugby control.36
In a letter to the IRFB, New Zealand also withdrew all its previous requests for international representation and ‘for the calling of regular Conferences, as it is quite apparent to my union that these suggestions are of no value…’37 The severity of this reaction is largely owing to the fact that the NZRFU at this time was dominated by nationalists who ‘felt that New Zealand’s success at the game entitled it to a say in its future direction’ and ‘who resented British control of the game’.38 The Australian reaction was quite the opposite. Collins writes how the:
NSWRU sought to cover its embarrassment at the summary dismissal of its ideas by claiming that [A]lthough not on the agenda for the conference… the Dominion unions’ views [were] informally placed before the assembled delegates.39
The Wallabies were also set to tour the British Isles in 1927–1928 for the first time since their controversial first visit in 1908, therefore the NSWRU, looking to prove its deference to British rugby authorities, ‘set out to make sure that… nothing would occur that could offend their British hosts’.40
The South African reaction was somewhere in between. The SARFB, in realising that official talks did not yield results, started to pursue unofficial channels to gain a stake for the southern hemisphere in the game’s global governance. This change in approach was reinforced by the retirement of Jack Heyneman, who represented the old guard of white South African rugby’s pro-British establishment, and the introduction of a new dynamic duo in the game’s leadership. In March 1927, Andries ‘Sport’ Pienaar was elected to the presidency, while his deputy was Paul Roos, captain of the 1906–1907 Springbok team. Together, these two would lead a diplomatic campaign of unofficial talks with their counterparts in New Zealand and Britain to achieve their goal of international representation.
The first of these talks happened during the All Black Tour to South Africa in 1928. W.F. Hornig, the New Zealand team manager, was invited to a meeting with a SARFB sub-committee. Here, he must have been somewhat disappointed in what he had heard.41 Although the South Africans agreed with New Zealand on the principle of meaningful representation, they had different views on its format and how it should be pursued. The NZRFU wanted an Imperial Board of Control as the game’s highest authority and on which the four home unions and three southern hemisphere unions would enjoy equal representation. Under this dispensation, the IRFB would continue to govern matches between the four home unions. The SARFB, however, felt that the conservative nature of British authorities should be kept in mind and that they should first move to establish an Imperial Advisory Board, out of which, it believed, representation on the IRFB would naturally flow. Thus, whereas New Zealand immediately wanted an equal share in rugby’s global governance, South Africa first wanted meaningful representation on a body under the IRFB. The South African attitude and approach were summarised in a second meeting with Hornig a few days later, when Col. G.A. Morris, an SARFB-delegate, said:
[T]hat they were today only boys compared with the greybeards of the British Isles. They should respect age and not try to force the old man. They were all agreed as to their objective but the whole point was that they must hasten slowly, they must proceed quietly and diplomatically for they were not going to get anywhere by firing a pistol at its head.42
Although, as Winch notes, the ‘dominions were… merging into a united group’ by the late 1920s, the talks between the SARFB and Hornig laid bare the differences the two unions had in their respective approaches towards the same goal.43 The most important aspect of these meetings was, however, the instructions given to Paul Roos. As he would be travelling to Europe in late 1928 to further his studies, he was asked to use the opportunity to engage with British rugby authorities and personalities on the issue of international representation for the dominions. The SARFB reckoned that, with its diplomatic approach and history of loyalty towards British control, it could make inroads on the matter. Col. G.A. Morris, again, came up with a sharp summary of the plan when he noted that ‘a little diplomatic pressure was better than any amount of writing and representations… for it was the man on the spot that did it’.44 For a better man on the spot, the SARFB could not ask. Roos was known for his formidable character, while he also possessed valuable social capital in Britain after his Springbok team made a positive impression on the British public during their tour in 1906–1907.45 This stood in sharp contrast to the controversy and ill feelings that emanated from the first All Black and Wallaby tours in 1905 and 1908, respectively.46
When Paul Roos’ report was received by the SARFB in May 1929, it made for depressing reading. During informal talks with several influential British rugby personalities at the Oxford-Cambridge match in December 1928, he put forward the South Africans’ case – ‘to have direct representation on some body with supreme legislative powers without interfering with domestic affairs in Great Britain’.47 The RFU-men were not prepared to take the matter to their union, and instead advised Roos meet with Scotland’s James Aikman-Smith despite them being ‘pretty sure that [he] would make no headway’.48 After a surprisingly productive conversation here, in which he was told that the main issue was the dominions’ affiliation to the English union, Roos was sent back to the RFU. Here, he was invited to an IRFB-meeting in March 1929, where he repeated South Africa’s case and received in return a resolution that ‘all Dominion Unions should agree to adopt the laws of the game as framed by the [IRFB]’.49 To South Africa, this meant very little, as they did not play according to any local rule dispensations like it was the case in New Zealand and Australia. Paul Roos’ diplomatic mission was a disappointing failure.
Collins writes how the ‘RFU continued to dangle the carrot of consultation in front of the Australians and New Zealanders if they would abandon the rule “dispensations” granted to them’.50 In return for ending the dispensations, the RFU would take steps to create a Rugby Football Commission along similar lines to that of the Advisory Board proposed in previous years. After some initial kickback, the NZRFU and NSWRU agreed to end their use of local rule dispensations, with the SARFB following suit – ‘this Board will be ready to fall into line’.51 The antipodeans did, however, not agree to the formation of yet another body under the IRFB where it would have no real say.52
South Africa persisted with unofficial diplomatic talks. The next mission would be undertaken by the president himself, Andries Pienaar, who joined the touring Springbok team in Britain in 1931–1932. He reported back that the RFU ‘were really the only people who were at all interested in the subject of Dominion relations and in satisfying Dominion aspirations for representation’, and that to the Irish and Scottish unions, the idea of a single international governing body on which all unions would be represented was ‘rank heresy’. Moreover, these two unions were so conservative that Pienaar found it ‘difficult to reason with them logically, in fact the matter could only be approached jokingly and in that way, one could make them laugh at themselves’. The main take-away from this mission was ‘that the Dominions should go very carefully, they should rather put their faith in evolution than in any revolutionary action…’ The assurance from Ireland and Scotland that ‘if only South Africa was concerned, they would welcome us [in the IRFB]’ was scant consolation.53
Further efforts towards international representation for the dominions in the 1930s did not yield any success. In December 1935, the English union met with its southern hemisphere counterparts and created a Dominion and Laws Committee within the RFU. This committee would consist of six English representatives and two from each of the dominions, and it would meet once every 3 years to compile suggestions regarding playing laws that it would put to the IRFB. The committee’s first meeting was to take place in South Africa during the British and Irish team’s tour there in 1938, but because of a lack of agenda items coming forward, it was postponed to December 1939 in London to coincide with the Wallaby-tour. The start of the Second World War, however, ended all plans.
After nearly two decades of dedicated efforts, the southern hemisphere unions had grown tired of conferences and consultative bodies that fell short of their ultimate goal of meaningful international representation. Changes in the political landscape of the British empire in general and in South Africa specifically, led to a renewed approach towards the matter in the years after the war.
1945–1958: ‘We have a right to two votes’
In the wake of the Second World War, rugby across the globe was resumed with great enthusiasm as domestic leagues and international tours were swiftly organised. The debate around international representation for the dominions was also taken up again, but this time by the RFU who called a Rugby Conference for December 1947, the third of its kind.
‘The RFU’s paternalist control of international rugby’, Collins writes, ‘was not to survive the new world order established after the Second World War’.54 The end of the war prompted, among other things, the start of an era of decolonisation and democratisation, while the newly-established United Nations (UN) promoted basic human rights and worked towards achieving a more equal and just socio-political dispensation around the globe. With the close interrelation of politics and sport in the British Commonwealth, these developments would spill over into the sporting world. As a result, the RFU and IRFB’s position of absolute control over the rugby world became untenable. This was underscored by yet more mutual ‘blood sacrifices’ made by the nations of the Commonwealth during another global conflict, while, as Watts Moses noted:
[T]he changed attitude of the Home Unions arose in part from the closer ties forged under wartime conditions, but perhaps even more from the retirement of administrators who were strongly opposed to any widening of the [International] Board’s constitution.55
The efforts of Australia’s long-time representative on the RFU, Dr L.G. ‘Bruno’ Brown, is also said to have played a role in warming the home unions to the idea of dominion representation.56
In its meeting in preparation for the 1947 conference, the SARFB appeared to be out of step with developments. While provincial representatives felt that the time had arrived for the establishment of a ‘supreme Rugby legislative body’, Andries Pienaar, now in his 20th year as president, still pleaded for caution. He noted ‘how jealous they [the four home unions] are of their self-government’ and how ‘the only way to make advance is by this gradual means of approach – you cannot rush them’. At the upcoming conference, South Africa would thus only push for the revival of the Dominions and Laws Committee within the RFU:
If we can get that Committee first and then broaden it into one in which the other [home] Unions will take part, we will eventually be able to get some control body which will manage the affairs of the Rugby playing world.57
Pienaar and Paul Roos, who represented the SARFB at the conference in London, must have been surprised to find the home unions were prepared to give each of the three southern hemisphere unions a seat around the IRFB-table. New Zealand, Australia and South Africa agreed to end their affiliation to the RFU, while the latter agreed to reduce its four representatives to two. The broadening of the IRFB’s constitution was made official at its annual meeting in March 1948.58 A condition precedent to this was that the different Australian rugby authorities would agree to establishing an over-arching Australian Rugby Football Union (ARFU), whose constitution was adopted in November 1949.59 After nearly three decades of repeated attempts, the three southern hemisphere unions achieved their goal of international representation.
They were, however, not necessarily joyous about this, and for different reasons. The New Zealanders and Australians, on the one hand, had to once again give up local rule dispensations that were granted to them by the RFU in 1936.60 According to New Zealand press reports at the time, ‘when the [dominion] unions were admitted [to the IRFB], they were told that the status quo could not be upset and that they would not receive any further dispensations’.61 In addition to this, the system of unequal representation on the IRFB – which still heavily favoured the four home unions in any vote – meant that the antipodeans had very little to no chance of effecting any changes to the laws of the game. Their admission to the IRFB had, in fact, neutralised them. Moreover, admittance to the IRFB also initiated a power struggle in Australian rugby as the NSWRU’s dominance of the administration of the game was challenged by Queensland and Victoria in what was expected to be a ‘prolonged battle’.62
The South Africans, on the other hand, were somewhat ambivalent about their new status. Despite viewing admission to the international table as ‘the greatest achievement that could have come about’, the SARFB saw its severance from the RFU as ‘a great pity indeed’ and a ‘great loss to us all’.63 Its 1949 resolution ‘to record its deep gratitude to the English Union for its practical and fatherly interest for more than 50 years’ is also noteworthy.64 Apart from referring to the ‘imperial parent-child relationship’ that characterised early international rugby relations,65 it can also be read as a political statement in the South African context of the time. Coming just 1 year after the pro-republican National Party won the elections and started introducing its apartheid policies, the SARFB perhaps felt the need to reiterate its British loyalties in a rapidly changing South Africa. Until the 1940s, the administration of white rugby in the country was largely dominated by pro-British English-speakers and anglicised Afrikaners from the higher social classes. The status quo was, however, changing.
Afrikaner nationalism as socio-political phenomena gained significant momentum in the 1930s and 1940s. Rugby was increasingly regarded as the national sport of the Afrikaner, and they appropriated the game with vigour on a cultural level during this era. The sport became a symbol of Afrikaner nationalism, and it was viewed as a way to beat the British at their own game – not only on the sporting field, but also in the economic and political arenas of the country where Afrikaners sought to carve out a place for themselves.66 As a result of Afrikaners’ continued appropriation of the rugby, along with their general ascendence in the country’s socio-political milieu, they steadily gained a foothold in the administration of the game. This process is often referred to as the Afrikanerisation of the sport, or ‘the rise of Afrikanerism in rugby football’ as one of Danie Craven’s biographers has described it.67 Regardless of the name, this process was notably amplified during the war years. In 1943, two pro-Afrikaner governing bodies for white rugby were established in the Cape Province as a response to several provincial rugby unions and clubs throughout the country lending monetary support to various war and other related charity funds. The so-called ‘rugby split’ was a catalytic event in the Afrikanerisation of white rugby in South Africa in general, and of the SARFB in particular.68 It was, however, not a process that unfolded overnight. In 1956, the former Springbok forward Lucas Strachan voiced nationalist Afrikaners’ frustration at the slow pace of transformation in rugby governance when he said that ‘99 percent of rugby players today are Afrikaners, yet the other 1 percent are controlling the game’.69 Criticism like this is rooted more in ideology than in reality. Nonetheless, the resultant evolution in the character of the national governing body reflected in, among other things, its approach to international relations.
The southern hemisphere unions were effectively neutralised in their first few years on the IRFB. The system of unequal representation still favoured the home unions in any vote, while a moratorium was placed on changes to the laws of the game from 1951 to 1954, and later extended to January 1958.70 During this time, the SARFB, which increasingly became the domain of Afrikaner administrators with no loyalties towards the British control of rugby, started to lend its support for New Zealand’s continued efforts to gain equal representation on the IRFB. When Danie Craven was voted into the presidency in April 1956, the SARFB discarded diplomacy in favour of a more direct approach. Craven voiced this change when he said that ‘we have a right to two votes not because this is that or the other, but simply because we play international rugby’, and later also, ‘[we] will come to you for two representatives and we want two’.71 With its historically most loyal ally in the southern hemisphere now also vociferously pressing for equality around the international table, the IRFB found it harder to deny them.
In 1958, a decade after the admission of the three southern hemisphere unions, the IRFB gave all its members full and equal status. There are several factors which influenced this decision. In terms of international geopolitics, as Collins writes, ‘Harold Macmillan’s “winds of change” were blowing through a decrepit British empire, [and] their breezes were also being felt in rugby union’.72 In the face of the worldwide wave of decolonisation, the IRFB could not continue to deny its members equal status. The decade-long neutralisation of the southern hemisphere unions through unequal representation thus became an unsustainable position. The antipodean unions’ continued pleas for equality, which enjoyed the support of the SARFB from the mid-1950s, also forced the IRFB to give them a second vote. Moreover, when the board met for its annual meeting in 1957, it was for the first time chaired by a dominion representative, namely Justice L.J. Herron from Australia, who used the opportunity to call for equal status. Watts Moses also writes how the ‘proud achievements’ of the southern hemisphere unions on the playing field justified their claims for full status.73
Assessing the journey
Despite their common goal of equal international representation, South Africa on the one hand, and New Zealand and Australia on the other, had markedly different approaches. This is evident from their respective actions and reactions around the three Imperial Rugby Conferences of 1924, 1926 and 1947. While South Africa espoused an evolutionary and largely cautious approach, New Zealand and Australia followed a more revolutionary approach.
That is not to say that the SARFB kept hammering at the door of the IRFB without changing its tune. The disappointment of the 1926 conference, along with a new and younger SARFB-leadership being elected in the following year, moved the organisation to alter its attitude. While keeping to its position of general loyalty towards the British authorities, South Africa started pursuing unofficial channels to achieve its goal of international representation. This approach, which manifested in talks with New Zealand officials and two separate diplomatic missions to Britain by Paul Roos and Andries Pienaar, respectively, was not immediately successful. The conservative spirit remained in force in British rugby and the Second World War cut short any further progress. It might, however, have laid the groundwork for the IRFB’s decision in 1948 to allow the southern hemisphere unions one seat each. After this, equal representation became the new goal.
Socio-political developments in South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s led to yet another change in the SARFB’s line of action. As Afrikaner nationalism gained momentum, white South African rugby underwent a process of Afrikanerisation whereby Afrikaners increasingly gained the upper hand in the boardroom and, as a result, the remaining loyalties towards the continued British control of the game dissolved. From the mid-1950s, the SARFB forged ahead on a more aggressive pursuit of equality, now lending their support to the NZRFU who kept calling for it. This new approach, along with other important factors as discussed, culminated in the IRFB giving the southern hemisphere unions a second seat each in 1958.
South Africa’s journey to full status on the IRFB was a long and winding road. It started from a position of loyalty towards the British hegemony of rugby’s global governance, but over time developed the desire to sit on the IRFB. The South Africans tried in many ways to achieve that goal. At times, they were alone in their efforts, but in the end, the road led to the door of full and equal international status.
Acknowledgements
Competing interests
The author declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
Author’s contributions
W.J.D.W. is the sole author of this research article.
Ethical considerations
This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human participants.
Funding information
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data availability
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of position of any affiliated agency of the author, and the publisher.
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Footnotes
1. World Rugby, “About World Rugby.” https://www.world.rugby/organisation/about-us/overview.
2. Douglas, Steve. “Beaumont vs Pichot: The Battle for Rugby’s Top Job.” AP News, April 27, 2020. https://apnews.com/article/ac6f52e31a7a300554f1eafe6e1caa15.
3. Meagher, Gerard. ‘Scrum Time for Beaumont and Pichot: the dinosaur v the dynamo’, The Guardian, April 26, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2020/apr/26/bill-beaumont-agustin-pichot-world-rugby-election-rugby-union.
4. Collins, Tony. The Oval World: A Global History of Rugby (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 59.
5. Collins, The Oval World: A Global History of Rugby, 59–60.
6. Collins, Tony. A Social History of English Rugby Union (London: Routledge, 2009), 156–82.
7. Collins, Tony. “The Tyranny of Deference: Anglo-Australian Relations and Rugby Union Before World War II.” Sport in History 29, no. 3 (2009): 437–56.
8. Ryan, Greg. “A Tale of Two Dinners: New Zealand Rugby and the Embrace of Empire, 1919–32.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no. 10 (2011): 1409–25.
9. Winch, Jonty. World Champions: The Story of South African Rugby (Cape Town: Best Red, 2022), 162–75.
10. Racial discrimination in South African sports has a long and complex history. For an overview of the roots of racial segregation in South African sports, see Archer, Robert and Antoine Bouillon. The South African Game: Sport and Racism (London: Zed Press, 1982), 15–55.
11. Odendaal, André. “‘The Thing That Is Not Round’: The Untold History of Black Rugby in South Africa.” In Beyond the Tryline: Rugby and South African Society, edited by Albert Grundlingh, André Odendaal and Burridge Spies (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1995), 24–63; Dobson, Paul. Rugby in South Africa: A History, 1861–1988 (Cape Town: South African Rugby Board, 1989), 167–227.
12. Snyders, Hendrik. “Rugby, National Pride and the Struggle of Black South Africans for International Recognition, 1897–1992.” Sporting Traditions 32, no. 1 (2015), 97–122.
13. NSWRU letter to SARFB, 29 December 1906. South African Rugby Board Archive (hereafter SARBA), Collection I, Box number 1, University of Stellenbosch.
14. SARFB minutes, 30 March 1908. SARBA, I, 1.
15. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 168.
16. De Wet, Wouter. “A History of the South African Rugby Football Board (SARFB): Early Tears, 1889–1914.” Sport in History 41, no. 3 (2021): 378–381.
17. SARFB minutes, 14 February 1913. SARBA, I, 2.
18. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 59; Collins, “The Tyranny of Deference,” 446.
19. Watts Moses, Eric. History of the International Rugby Football Board 1886–1960 (Twickenham: Walker & Co., 1961), 9.
20. See Evans, Howard and Phil Atkinson. The King’s Cup 1919: Rugby’s First ‘World Cup’ (Cardiff: Ashley Drake, 2015).
21. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 172; Ryan, “A Tale of Two Dinners,” 1413; Collins, “The Tyranny of Deference,” 442–43.
22. Winch, World Champions, 169.
23. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 172.
24. Ryan, “A Tale of Two Dinners,” 1413.
25. SARFB minutes, 13 November 1924. SARBA, I, 3.
26. SARFB minutes, 13 November 1924. SARBA, I, 3.
27. SARFB minutes, 13 November 1924. SARBA, I, 3.
28. Report on Imperial Rugby Conference 1924, 22 December 1924. SARBA, I, 3.
29. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 172–73.
30. Quoted from SARFB minutes, 07 December 1925. SARBA, I, 3.
31. SARFB minutes, 07 December 1925. SARBA, I, 3.
32. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 172.
33. IRFB telegram to SARFB, 23 October 1925. SARBA, I, 3.
34. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 173.
35. SARFB minutes, 11 February 1927; SARFB Annual Report 1926. SARBA, I, 3.
36. “Rugby Football: Meeting of New Zealand Union,” Otago Daily Times, May 6, 1927.
37. NZRFU letter to IRFB, 14 July 1927. SARBA, I, 3.
38. Ryan, “A Tale of Two Dinners,” 1410, 1412.
39. Collins, “The Tyranny of Deference,” 447.
40. Collins, “The Tyranny of Deference,” 448.
41. In his report on the 1928 All Black Tour to South Africa, W.F. Hornig voiced his frustration about the southern hemisphere rugby unions’ lack of progress in terms of achieving international representation. In accepting the report, NZRFU-chairman Stan Dean stated that ‘if they had any grievance, it was against the Scottish and Irish Unions and the International Rugby [Football] Board.’ See “The All Blacks Tour, Report from Manager.” Stratford Evening Post, November 29, 1928; “Very Happy Party, All Blacks in Africa, Team Manager’s Report.” Auckland Sun, November 29, 1928; “The All Blacks South African Tour.” Evening Star, November 29, 1928.
42. SARFB minutes, 03 October 1928. SARBA, I, 4.
43. Winch, World Champions, 170.
44. SARFB minutes, 03 October 1928. SARBA, I, 4.
45. Allen, Dean. “‘Captain Diplomacy’: Paul Roos and the Creation of South Africa’s Rugby Springboks’.” Sport in History 33, no. 4 (2013): 568–583; Van der Merwe, F.J.G. “Sports Heroes and National Identity: The Role of Paul Roos in Springbok Rugby.” African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance 17, no. 2 (2011): 219–25.
46. Ryan, “A Tale of Two Dinners,” 1411–12; Collins, “The Tyranny of Deference.” 440–41.
47. “Official report of proceedings carried on by P.J. Roos with the Rugby Football Union and other Football authorities in Great Britain at the request of the SARFB.” SARFB minutes, 29 May 1929. SARBA, I, 4. Original cursive.
48. “Official report of proceedings carried on by P.J. Roos with the Rugby Football Union and other Football authorities in Great Britain at the request of the SARFB.” SARFB minutes, 29 May 1929. SARBA, I, 4.
49. “Official report of proceedings carried on by P.J. Roos with the Rugby Football Union and other Football authorities in Great Britain at the request of the SARFB.” SARFB minutes, 29 May 1929. SARBA, I, 4.
50. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 173.
51. SARFB minutes, 26 March 1930. SARBA, I, 4.
52. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 173–74.
53. SARFB minutes, 30 March 1932. SARBA, I, 5.
54. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 174.
55. Watts Moses. History of the International Rugby Football Board 1886–1960, 13.
56. Watts Moses. History of the International Rugby Football Board 1886–1960, 13; Ron Palenski, Rugby: A New Zealand History (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2015), 275.
57. SARFB minutes, 06 June 1947. SARBA, I, 7.
58. Winch, World Champions, 172–73.
59. Moses, History of the International Rugby Football Board 1886–1960, 13.
60. Collins, “The Tyranny of Deference,” 451.
61. “Rugby Football Alterations to Rules.” New Zealand Press Association, August 20, 1952.
62. “Rugby Union: Major Issues for NSW Body.” Warwick Daily News, April 15, 1948; “New Body to Control Rugby Union.” Sydney Morning Herald, September 01, 1948.
63. SARFB minutes, 14 May 1948. SARBA, I, 7.
64. SARFB minutes, 25 March 1949. SARBA, I, 7.
65. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 174; Collins, “The Tyranny of Deference,” 450.
66. Grundlingh, Albert. “Playing with Purpose: Rugby and its Wider Significance in Afrikaner Society, c.1900-c.1989.” In Grundlingh, Albert. Potent Pastimes: Sport and Leisure Practices in Modern Afrikaner History (Pretoria, Protea Book House, 2013), 54–92; Allen, Dean. “Beating Them at Their Own Game: Rugby, the Anglo-Boer War and Afrikaner Nationalism, 1899–1948.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 20, no. 3 (2003), 37–57; Van der Merwe, F.J.G. “Afrikaner Nationalism in Sport.” Canadian Journal of History of Sport 22, no. 2 (1991), 34–46.
67. Dobson, Paul. Doc: The life of Danie Craven (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1994), 138.
68. De Wet, Wouter. “The Second World War, the ‘Rugby Split’, and the Afrikanerization of White Rugby in South Africa, c.1940–1956.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 39, no. 10 (2022): 1114–34.
69. “What politics has the Springbok?” The Cape Argus, February 21, 1956; “Sport and Prejudice.” Cape Times, February 22, 1956.
70. SARFB minutes, 30–31 March 1951. SARBA, I, 8; SARFB Report: International Rugby Football Board 1954, 17 May 1954. SARBA, I, 9.
71. SARFB minutes, 21 May 1954. SARBA, I, 9; SARFB minutes, 5 April 1957. SARBA, I, 10.
72. Collins, A Social History of English Rugby Union, 177.
73. Watts Moses, History of the International Rugby Football Board 1886–1960, 14.
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