They played twelve matches, including a four-match test series against South Africa, which they lost 3—1.

The rebel team were widely believed to have received large secret payments—a controversial issue at a time when rugby union was still supposedly an amateur sport.

10 members of the Cavaliers (Fox, Taylor, Green, Crowley, Buck Shelford, both Whetton brothers, Anderson, Pierce, and McDowell) all subsequently played for the New Zealand side that won the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987, and Dalton was named in the squad for the World Cup, but withdrew following injury, and retired.

John Mills had never been capped at test level before the tour, and retired from both domestic and international rugby at the end of the season anyway, while Dave Loveridge and Jock Hobbs, both of whom had previously been capped internationally, similarly retired from all rugby at the end of the 1986 season owing to a knee injury and a series of concussions respectively.

[8] The emblem consisted of a gold background (shaped as a top view of the Ellis Park) with a green oval in which an upright silver fern accompanied by a Springbok appeared.