BOMBS AWAY

It was on the afternoon of 12 September, 1981 when a Cessna light aircraft was spotted in the sky above Eden Park, Auckland, just as Andy Dalton’s All Blacks were entering the critical stages of their third and final Test match against Wynand Claassen’s Springboks. The series was tied 1-1 at that point and the concluding contest was on a knife-edge, the lead changing hands continually, the impetus flitting one way and then the other. When the Cessna appeared, nobody gave it much thought at first, but soon enough all eyes turned away from the pitch and focused on Marx Jones, the political activist, at the controls of the plane.

Jones, like many thousands of others in New Zealand, was passionately against the Springbok tour. For 56 days in July, August and September of 1981, New Zealand society was ripped apart by the worst social unrest the nation had seen in 30 years. More than 150,000 took part in demonstrations all over the country, many of which descended into bloody conflict. Families were at war about the arrival of the Springboks, the symbol of apartheid and the object of so much fury among the protesters. In the sky above Eden Park, Jones attempted to hijack the last game. He steered the Cessna lower and lower and dropped flour bombs and smoke bombs on to the pitch in an effort to halt the Test. The players dodged the missiles – or most of them did. Gary Knight, the fearsome All Blacks prop, was hit square on the head by a falling bomb. “Gary was a big, strong bugger,” said Dalton the other day, “so when I saw him go down it quickly hit home with me how bloody serious this was. Up to that point, to be honest, I was just totally focused on the game.”

Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the famous Flour Bomb Test of 1981, a game that provided poignant images that encapsulated one of the most controversial tours in the history of the game. As All Blacks captain, Dalton was at the heart of it all, so much so that his wife and family were under police protection come that last Test match.

“Rugby had been an integral part of the culture of New Zealand for many years, but friendships and marriages and even the government was put under a lot of pressure at the time,” says Dalton. “People had such strong opinions about whether the Springboks should be here or not. Some of the guys in the All Blacks team had their wives protesting in the streets outside. It was a nightmare for the country. New Zealand was torn apart by it. I was always of the opinion that you can’t mix politics with sport and I feel the same way now. I used to say to people: ‘Hang on, the All Blacks went to Bucharest to play a Test in late 1981 and we saw more oppression there than we ever did in South Africa, so why didn’t anybody have any problem with us going to Romania?’ I’m not saying that the things that were happening in South Africa or Romania at the time were acceptable, but why was one OK and the other not? I always struggled with that.”

Dalton was an outstanding hooker and storied captain, a player who won 30 of his 35 Tests for the All Blacks and 15 of his 17 as captain. “I could talk you through the losses a lot more easily than the victories, I can promise you that,” he says. “I had great days in a great team with some great mates, but 1981 was a very difficult period. If I had that time all over again then I would make the same decisions, but I wish I never had to make those decisions in the first place. Some of my friends completely opposed what I was doing and said so. The tension lingered between us for years. In some cases the friendships never quite recovered. Most of the boys, I’m sure, would tell you the same thing.”

The tour began in Gisborne on 22 July when the Springboks played Poverty Bay. There were rumours going around the country that the objection to the tour was intense, but nobody knew quite how intense. In Gisborne, the full scale of the people’s fury was there for all to see. Fans and protesters engaged in thunderous collisions. Three days later, in Hamilton, there was more fighting before the South Africans’ game against Waikato, a game that had to be abandoned before a ball was kicked. Four days after that, there was the infamous Molesworth Street riot in the wake of the Springboks’ victory over Taranaki in New Plymouth.

“As the Test series approached, there was definitely added pressure on the All Blacks to win. Graham Mourie would have been our captain, but Graham decided he wanted no part of it. Graham was, and still is, a good friend of mine. I respected his views and he respected mine, but elsewhere it was mayhem. There was barbed wire around the stadiums, there were attacks against the police and it was really fortunate that nobody died.”

The All Blacks won the first Test in Christchurch amid massive unrest on the streets, then lost the second in Wellington as residential areas became battle zones. Protesters blocked motorways and pedestrian passageways to the ground and fighting broke out all over the city. “We were shielded from a lot of what was happening, but we all watched it on television and read it in the papers. Some journalists were pro the tour, but many were dead against it, absolutely vehemently against what was happening. I just kept telling the boys to focus on what we needed to focus on and that was the final Test and the critical need of a victory. We had to win it. Had to.”

They did, of course, but it was oh so close, 25-22, a match only won in the closing minutes of an incredibly tense afternoon. The Springboks had been beaten but the legacy of the series was not a glorious one for the All Blacks. Vast parts of the country were so outraged that they would host a team from a country that endorsed apartheid that a rift developed between the people and their team and the rift didn’t heal fully until 1987 when the All Blacks won the inaugural World Cup.

Dalton should still have been captain at that stage, should still have been keeping his young understudy, Sean Fitzpatrick, on the bench, should have been the one that lifted the Webb Ellis, not David Kirk. Injury cost him his place in the team and his moment in history, but he’s philosophical about that.

“Injuries are part of a rugby player’s life, aren’t they? I’ve no regrets. Well, 1981 is a bit of a regret in that I wish none of that happened, I wish the country wasn’t turned on its head like that. It took us quite a while to get over it. In my mind’s eye I can still see that plane at Eden Park. There could have been a terrible accident that day. That aircraft was close to flying into the crowd. Crazy times.

“I know that some of the South African team of 1981 are coming to New Zealand soon to revisit some of the places they went to on our tour 30 years ago. It’s nice to think that they’ll get to see the country this time. Thankfully, we’re all in a better place now.”