League: Tamatis on mission to get Maori team into world cup

SYDNEY - New Zealand Maori league bosses Kevin and Howie Tamati will travel to Sydney this week to join Aborigine league officials to try to get their exclusion from the 2008 world cup overturned.

After reports last week that both indigenous teams had been excluded from the next world tournament, they will meet to form a plan to try to change the minds of the International Rugby League Federation (IRLF) this month.

The Tamatis, former Kiwis internationals, will meet Australian league legend and Aborigine Arthur Beetson this week to discuss the issue before they all meet IRLF and Australian Rugby League (ARL) chairman Colin Love on August 18.

Love has said there would be problems in changing the 10-team tournament format because qualifying matches were already under way.

The Sun-Herald newspaper reported yesterday that the Tamati brothers would call on the ARL to repay "a debt of history".

They claim that a 12-match tour of Australia by a Maori representative team in 1908 helped league to take root across the Tasman.

The team returned in 1909 and reportedly played before huge crowds to cement the sport's popularity in New South Wales and Queensland.

Beetson, a high-profile ally for the Maori cause, will enlist the help of friends Dick (Tosser) Turner, a former Queensland official, and Brisbane Broncos' legend Gorden Tallis, who is now a National Rugby League director.

"Both the Maori and Aborigines should be there," Beetson told the Sun-Herald.

"The World Cup is being treated as a celebration of league's centenary year, and there'll be no better opportunity to acknowledge the contribution to the code by Aborigines and Maori."

Other high-profile league names to throw their support behind the indigenous teams are Cronulla coach John Lang and former Kangaroos hardman Mark Geyer.

- NZPA