William Kingita Ngahere Te Pohe Bush MNZM

IWI: Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Hineuru

MARAE:

BIRTHPLACE: Napier (24 January 1949)

 

 

 

 

RUGBY (ALL BLACK #738)

Biography | tuhinga koi ora

Bill had nine siblings and one half-sister.

Educated at Whakatane High School.

Bill met his long-time partner in 1972, Annette Nelson of Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kurī and they live in Christchurch, Bill has a son Isaac.

 

By his own admission, Bill Bush was an unlikely All Black. A kina diver at primary school and a labourer at Marsden Point refinery at 14, Bill was keener on swimming.

It took the promise of a bit of kai – Fanta and a mince pie – to lure him into his first game of rugby as an 11-year-old for the Wairaka Marae third-grade side.

“I did go to Rugby Park in Whakatāne after rugby games, but it was only to collect empty bottles to earn enough to get into the local picture theatre,” he recalls. “When I was asked why I wasn’t playing rugby, I’d reply, ‘Oh, no… it’s too rough for me!’

“Honestly, for a long time I couldn’t get over how the hell I’d got into the All Blacks team! It feels like I didn’t pick rugby – it picked me.”

 

The rugby ruckus over a claim that a New Zealand Maori team were ordered to lose to the 1956 Springboks has prompted ex-All Black Bill Bush to ponder an incident on the controversial 1981 tour.

Anglican bishop Muru Walters, the fullback in the 1956 Maori team, insisted this week that Maori Affairs Minister Ernest Corbett visited the players in the dressing shed before the game and told them not to beat the tourists or the All Blacks would never be invited back to South Africa.

Maori forward Tiny Hill denied the team were instructed to lose and blamed the 37-0 defeat on poor tactics. Hill insisted Corbett was "never in the dressing room".

However, Walters' claim has left Bush pondering whether political pressure may have been brought to bear on the referee who awarded a debatable dropped goal that let the 1981 Springboks escape with a 12-12 draw against the Maori in Napier.

Bush, a Canterbury prop who played 12 tests, captained the Maori to the brink of a historic win. They were clinging to a 12-9 lead when the Springboks won a scrum with a minute to go.

The ball was flicked to first five-eighth Colin Beck, who let fly a dropped goal which Bush still swears "never went between the posts".

Bush said the referee – the late Brian Duffy – was standing near him by the scrum "at an acute angle".

"Victor Simpson and Eddie Dunn were underneath the crossbar and they said it missed. Colin Meads and Kel Tremain were standing on the embankment behind the posts. They said to me at the after-match function, `that goal missed by two or three metres'," Bush said yesterday.

He said television footage of the match showed a couple of Springboks "jumped in the air" but most "went back to the 25 [yard line] waiting for a drop out. But the referee carried on to halfway and awarded the goal."

"I was told by our manager Ivan Vodanovich on our way to the after-match function, `you're not to say anything about the controversial dropped goal [at the after-match function]. The referee's decision is final, that's all you've to say about it'."

Bush maintained a diplomatic silence to the media at the time, saying the draw was "a fair result".

He now wonders whether "anyone from the [New Zealand] union said anything to the referee" about the ramifications of a Māori team beating the Springboks.

And Feedback  He was aware of the historical concern in South Africa about the Springboks being beaten by a team containing "coloured" players.

However, the 1981 Springboks side was the first to include a non-white player, Errol Tobias, who played against the Māori side.

Bush insisted that no-one told his team to lose. "We really ripped into it. We had them 9-0 at one stage."

Bush said the dropped-goal decision denied the Māori the chance to win the Springbok head trophy as "the only team outside the All Blacks" to beat the Boks on tour.

 

The head was instead presented to Ross Meurant, the head of the red squad police unit which "looked after the Springboks during the turmoil on that tour", Bush said.

The trophy ended up in Bush's hands in 2006 when he was a guest at a reunion dinner in Pretoria for the 1981 Springboks squad.

Bush was presented with a Springbok head trophy, "which I've now got on my wall at home". He said the Boks players "knew the kick didn't go over" and admitted "you should have got [the head] in Napier at the after-match function".

Bush said Beck also "wrote a book [where he] said it didn't go over".

Beck skilfully sidestepped the issue in an interview on South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper's website in February. "Ah, the drop," he laughed. "Look, it's a difficult call as to whether it went over.

"I don't think the ref was in a very good position and there was a bit of confusion. The ball went relatively high and I have a feeling it went directly over one post, which was very short, so the decision could have gone either way and the ref gave us the benefit of the doubt.

"Whether it went over or not, I really can't say, it was too long ago. But it's in the record books."

The dropped-goal controversy is likely to be revisited next year if Bush and Beck meet at the Rugby World Cup. Beck said the 1981 squad were planning a reunion visit to New Zealand although they "definitely need a few more rand to pull it off".

Fairfax NZ New

 

Ex-All Black Billy Bush recalls unlikely let-off

All Black Billy Bush recalls some of the rugged times he experienced during the 1976 tour of South Africa.

A stray punch from Billy Bush on the 1976 tour almost earned him the dubious honour of joining Colin Meads as the only other All Black to be sent from a rugby field.

A punch-up between the All Blacks forwards and their North West Cape-South West Africa opponents at Upington, a town near the Namibia border, resulted in Bush accidentally walloping the referee, who made the mistake of trying to grab the tighthead prop during the scuffle.

"Kevin Eveleigh got carted off because he got booted in his head and had about 20 stitches down the side of his face," Bush said.

"And it was just an all-in brawl and we were having a ding-dong go and the referee grabbed my shoulder. I spun around and let him have it."

The reaction from the captain of the day was immediate, Bush said: "And Alan Sutherland said, `You've gone now, you dopey bastard.' And I said, `Oh well, too bad,' but the guy didn't order me off."

Reports from the match show the referee, Schubel O'Reilly from Northern Transvaal, was persuaded not to send Bush off by the opposition captain Herklaas Engelbrecht, who told the official the prop had been provoked.

The referee also had another reason not to give Bush his marching orders and sought him out afterwards. "He said, 'Billy, if you weren't my son's hero I would have ordered you off.' That's the way it is. She was rugged, she was rugged."

Bush played nine consecutive matches on the tour and 15 in total. He also reckoned he could have played more had it not been for some tomfoolery outside the team hotel.

 

"I sprained an ankle playing in front of the hotel. Lyn Davis was giving me a bit of flak and I chased him and he put his foot out, I went straight over the top of him and went straight over my ankle."

Although he told coach JJ Stewart he could continue playing, the gaffer was not convinced and Bush lost his place for the third test to Perry Harris before returning for the finale at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.

"I came home as the lightest I had ever been," Bush reckoned. "I left at 17 1/2 stone [110kg] and came back two stones lighter [at about 98kg]. I felt good ... I also lost a couple of teeth because I got whacked in the mouth."

 

Achievements | tutukitanga

RUGBY ACHIEVEMENTS
• Canterbury 1971, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82
• Māori All Blacks 1973, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82
• All Blacks 1974, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79

HONOURS
• NZ ORDER OF MERIT MNZM 1996