Former Governor General Sir Paul Reeves is calling on the New Zealand Rugby Football Union to face up to years of neglect of Maori rugby.
The Te Atiawa elder says last week's apologies to Maori players excluded from All Black tours to South Africa between the 1920s - 1960s needs to be repeated on a marae, as part of a hui designed to take Maori rugby forward.
He told Waatea news that Maori rugby brings a unique flavour to the New Zealand game, which the NZRU fails to recognise.
Maori rugby historian Malcolm Mulholland - author of Beneath the Maori Moon - says he is organising a hui at Te Poho o Rawiri marae in Gisborne to give the rugby union an opportunity to apologise face to face to the families of Maori All Blacks denied the chance to tour South Africa.
