'Flour-bomb test' ends Springbok tour

The third and deciding test at Eden Park, Auckland, is best remembered for the flares and flour bombs dropped onto the pitch from a light plane. Outside the ground, violence erupted on a scale unprecedented during the tour.

All Black manager Peter Burke described it as ‘a magnificent game’ in which the All Blacks had a ‘job to do for New Zealand rugby and the rugby-loving people of New Zealand’. As was typical of this tour, though, the match was overshadowed by events off the field – and in the air.

Outside the ground ‘all hell broke loose’. Fighting erupted in nearby streets and police pelted with rocks and missiles gave as good as they got. Some observers suggested the protesters had been joined by opportunists who just wanted to fight the police.

Security around the ground was the tightest of the tour. But Marx Jones and Grant Cole took their anti-tour protest to new heights in a hired Cessna aircraft. While flares were fired by protesters on the ground, Jones and Cole peppered Eden Park with flour bombs in an attempt to halt the game. Against this surreal backdrop, the rugby continued. When All Black prop Gary Knight was felled by a flour bomb, South African captain Wynand Claassen asked ‘whether New Zealand had an air force or not’.

On the pitch, the All Blacks won 25–22 thanks to an injury-time penalty goal by Allan Hewson.

Image: still from film of the third test