It was Percy Montgomery and Frans Steyn who kicked the winning points for the Springboks in the 2007 Rugby World Cup final, but there was a more important kick for the team one year before, and in less alluring surrounds than the glittering Stade de France in Paris.
Rustenburg is a far cry from Paris, but that is where the Springboks placed one hand on the Webb Ellis Cup ahead of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The match in question, at the pretentiously named Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace, is an almost forgotten one in the colourful history of the Springbok-All Black rivalry.
The context of the match was crucial because John Smit’s Boks had lost five matches in a row, including copping 45 points from New Zealand the week before in Pretoria, and now they had to play the same opponents.
The public mood was ugly. It was the same in the boardroom of the South African Rugby Union where the suits were itching to fire coach Jake White.
Smit knew that a sixth consecutive defeat would mean the end of White, and possibly himself because a new coach would give the team a spring cleaning. Everything Jake and John had worked for from 2004 towards the World Cup would be discarded.
After the heavy Loftus defeat, White took the Boks out of Pretoria, away from the miffed public and put them in a resort near Sun City. Smit later confessed that his players were gatvol of losing and “didn’t give a damn anymore”.
Before kick-off there was a declaration of war in the change room and the Boks ran out and played with the desperation of condemned men. The All Blacks, who had won 15 Tests in a row, responded in kind and the match turned into a streetfight.
I have a vivid memory of a crazed Carl Hayman rising from a scrum in which he had been given a “Welcome to Rustenburg” and chasing Os du Randt to a ruck. He split open Os’ forehead with a punch.
This ferocious struggle accelerated to a climax when All Black No 8 Rodney So’oialo had a moment of madness in the 78th minute and dived into a ruck, palpably from the side, with his team 18-17 ahead. The English referee Chris White raised his arm in favour of the Boks and Smit sprinted to the spot, yelling “Posts! Posts!”
Smit tossed the ball to Andre Pretorius, the flyhalf who was richly talented but lost so much of his career to injury. Smit says he tried to break the ice by saying to Pretorius, with a smile, “rather you than me”, and then went into earnest prayer.
“The kick had to go over. If it did, a cloud of woe would lift. If it didn’t, it would be tickets for Jake and our team,” Smit recalled. “I roared it through the uprights and collapsed onto the pitch with relief when the flags went up. I wept. I had carried the weight of defeat on my shoulders for two months and in a flash of Andre’s boots, the heavy burden vanished.”
The All Blacks had been beaten. White escaped the coaching gallows. A week later the Boks beat Australia at Ellis Park, and the heat was off.
There was a sequel to that ruckus in Rustenburg. The relief among the Boks resulted in steam being blown off that night at Sun City. The spanner in the works was that the All Blacks were also in the building, so to speak, and the teams squared up to each other in the Traders Bar. A combustible atmosphere prevailed.
The All Blacks hate losing and the Boks were in the mood to rub it in their faces. A remark by Butch James to assistant coach Steve Hansen had rugged lock Ali Williams clenching his fists. Smit decided that discretion would be the better part of valour and took his team out of the bar.
The battle lust waned as the night wore on and all was forgiven in the wee hours when Smit encountered an All Black sitting in a bush, looking rather ruffled. “Dan, do you need a hand?” Smit asked, and Mr Carter replied: “Thanks Smitty, that would be nice,” and off the pair went to the casino.
A year later Smit led his team out at the Stade de France for the World Cup final against England. By that point the Boks were a vastly different animal to the mongrel dogs that had scrapped for their lives in the Battle of Bafokeng.
They had grown into a mighty python, as Smit put it. Yes, at the Word Cup they had scares against Tonga (in a pool game) and Fiji (in the quarter-final). But when they were in the mood they were class, thumping England 36-0 in a pool game and a very good Argentina side 37-13 in the semi-final.
In his autobiography, Smit wrote: “When we had won through to the final I told the guys that we were like a massive python that you can see and want to keep at a distance. If you get too close it wraps you up slowly and starts squeezing. After 50 or 60 minutes the opposition have had no ball, penetration or opportunities in our 22. We have stolen their lineouts and tackled them backwards. They can’t breathe, and then they die.”
* This story is an extract from Mike Greenaway’s book, the Fireside Springbok, available in leading bookstores.
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