On my sidebar I reserve the right to avoid theology and stuff and to "write about cricket and politics." The article I link to below is not about cricket. It is about rugby. It is written by Linda Burgess. And she can write! Her husband Bob Burgess was a brilliant first-five who I saw with my own eyes score two tries against the 1971 Lions at Lancaster Park. (I also saw one of the greatest tries of all time, Ian Kirkpatrick running 50m, fending off Lions' players as though they were annoying flies, from an amazing viewpoint: the then "Boys Enclosure"on the south-west corner of the Park was in exact line of sight of his run down the field.) I digress. Back to Linda Burgess.
She writes about an era in All Black rugby which straddled changes in our society - to the role of women, to attitudes to sporting contact with South Africa, to rugby's religious role in society. I find her article to be both a walk down memory lane and an evocation of a different world. She also touches on a contentious subject in NZ rugby history, the treatment of Keith Murdoch, expelled from the 1972 rugby tour to the UK, Ireland and France. Indeed his biography sparks the article's writing.
I won't spoil the potential reading pleasure of the whole article by citing from it. It is here.
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