Former Wallaby Reg Smith recalls the 1971 Australia v South Africa Test in Brisbane

THE 1971 Wallabies v Springboks Test in Brisbane brought anti-apartheid protesters, police and barbed wire. And for former Wallaby Reg Smith, pain, writes Mike Colman.

Police line up in front of the crowd at the Australia v South Africa Test in Brisbane in 1971.

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FOR the majority of people who attended the 1971 Wallaby-Springboks Test match in Brisbane the abiding memories are of anti-apartheid demonstrators, police and barbed wire.

The only thing former Wallaby Reg Smith remembers is the scrums — and pain.

Smith, a 23 year-old second rower who had made his Test debut against the South Africans two weeks earlier in Sydney, arrived in Brisbane to face the greatest challenge in rugby. He was to face the Springboks veteran captain Hannes Marias at tighthead prop — a position he had never played before in his life.

“I was living with my sister in Sydney and she’d heard the second Test team on the radio before she went to work,” he recalls from his home in Bowral in country NSW. “She wrote a message on the bathroom mirror in lipstick. ‘Congratulations. You’re in the side — at prop!’ I read it and just thought, ‘Ohhhh #*%@!’

Police line up in front of the crowd at the Australia v South Africa Test in Brisbane in 1971.

“Back in those days the team was picked on Tuesday night. Wednesday we flew up to Brisbane, met the other guys, had a light run then trained Thursday, had another light run Friday and showed up to play on Saturday.

“The other prop was Roy Prosser and hooker was Peter Johnson, both experienced front rowers. They had three days to teach me everything it had taken them 20 years to learn.”

The only scrummaging practice the side had was against the Nudgee 1st XV.

“The thinking behind it was that I was a good tight forward but we’d lost the lineouts in the first Test. The selectors wanted my work around the field but they needed more height in the lineout, so they brought in another second rower and moved me forward.”

Australian captain Greg Davis right edges out opposing skipper Hannes Marais during the Wallabies v South Africa Test in Brisbane in 1971.

The Springboks saw the move as an indication that the Wallabies were planning to put on the biff, as Smith had ruffled some feathers in the first Test.

“Back then the lineouts were a dockyard brawl. Bring your knuckledusters and get stuck in. “Blokes were blocking and throwing elbows around and jumping off each other’s shoulders.

“At one stage in the first Test Hannes Marais told me, ‘Smitty, you do that again and I’ll kill you’ so I thought to myself, “Reggie, it might be time you backed off a bit’.”

Marias didn’t have to say anything to Smith in the second Test. His actions spoke far louder than words.

“By 10 minutes in I was completely buggered,” Smith said. “Hannes Marias was 30 years old, he’d played about 30 Tests and was one of the best scrummagers in the world.

“We didn’t collapse too many times but I do remember Johnno hooking a couple of balls back with his head. By the end Roy was swapping sides with me so he’d face Hannes and I could go to loose-head.

“The idea had been that I could still compete in the lineouts but I couldn’t jump two inches. For days I was walking around like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Wallaby captain John Hipwell is chaired from the field by Reg Smith (left) and Stuart MacDougall after Australia’s Test against England at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1975.

The Springboks won the Test 14-8 and Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen could boast he beat the demonstrators.

Having declared a State of Emergency, Bjelke-Petersen called in police from all over Queensland and had a 2.5 metre fence erected around the Exhibition Ground.

“The demonstrators had got onto the field in Sydney but Joh aced that with his fence,” Smith said. “I remember when we ran on it felt like we were playing at the Coliseum.

“Then the game started and all I remember is those bloody scrums — and trying not to let everyone down.”

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