South Africa's rugby players flew into a race row before this morning's Tri-Nations test match against New Zealand in Wellington, that for once involved the other team.

The Springbok coach Rudolf Straeuli - a man familiar with daily debates in South African society over quotas to fast-track black sportsmen in most codes - had to defend New Zealand's coach John Mitchell against charges of racial bias laid by an ex-international.

The former All Black Chris Laidlaw accused Mitchell in a newspaper column of excluding Maori and Polynesian-descended players from the national team in favour of white, Pakeha (European-descended players) players.

"I know John very well and I know that he is not a racist," said Straeuli, who first played against Mitchell on the 1994 Springbok tour of New Zealand and subsequently opposed him as a coach in England when the latter was at Sale and Straeuli with Bedford.

Laidlaw based his opinion on the fact that leading players such as Tana Umaga and Jonah Lomu had been omitted from last week's Test against Australia and are only on the bench against South Africa.

He also highlighted the exclusion from the current All Black squad of other outstanding Super 12 performers of Maori or Polynesian origin such as Roger Randle, Bruce Reihana, Jerry Collins and Pita Alatini as evidence of a bias.

He wrote: "The fact that Mitchell and Deans [assistant coach] have opted for a Pakeha squad might be an accident or it might not. I think not.

"Mitchell is a conservative when it comes to preparing horses for courses. He has shown that he values accuracy, consistency and reliability above flair and imagination - in his quest for these qualities he has opted for almost exclusively Pakeha players.

"Setting aside a very tenuous Maori connection or two this [the team that played Australia] was essentially the All Whites dressed in black."

Mitchell robustly denied any racial prejudice. "Eleven players in our 26 are non-European. We are very much into character - that's what we select on."

The Springboks' manager Gideon Sam, a black sports administrator, said: "It was a shock to see that in this part of the world you are still talking about race issues."

· The International Rugby Board will, for the first time, address the problem of player burnout at a special conference in September. Related issues such as injury recovery periods and the length of the off-season will also be covered.