’56 Springbok tour : 18th July 1956 – Fraser Park; Timaru
Springboks 20 / South-Canterbury;North-Otago;Mid-Canterbury Combined 8
Craven took a week off –resting at Mount Cook- and under instruction of assistant manager Dan de Villiers the Springbok intentions was to run the ball against a team not likely to front any stiff opposition.
A number of factors combined to derail the effort especially in the last quarter of the second half when the match turned into an extremely scrappy affair. These factors being injuries –before and during the match- poor refereeing, and a general sort of holiday or lack of real application attitude amongst the second stringers.
The team was essentially made up of the second stringers who spend the 6 days before the test in Queens Town for a bit of skiing and relaxation. Only Dryburg, Johnstone and Lochner had appeared in the test team the previous weekend. A number of players like Buckler, Briers, James Starke, Melt Hanekom played in their first match on tour. Brain Pfaff who was struggling with injuries was also in the team on flyhalf. Basie Viviers was supposed to start but re-injured himself the day before the match during practice.
This picture shows Theuns Bries beating his man. Briers and Starke played in the first matches on tour after arriving in New Zealand as replacements just before the Otago game. Continue reading
