‘Cornering’ the World Cup

Only now that the job has been done, the mission accomplished and the World Cup is the property of the Springboks for the next four years is it possible to relax.

There have been some nervous moments these last seven weeks and none more so than the excruciating 80 minutes of the Final at the Stade de France.

Just as in 1995 against New Zealand it was not an enjoyable occasion. It was just too tense and nerve-racking to be so and strangely, when I sat down in the media centre at the stadium to write my final match report, it felt like an anti-climax.

It was only at lunchtime on Sunday, in the company of some wonderful new French friends, that feelings of euphoria started to build with the realisation that the words “World Champions” will be attached to the Springboks wherever they go.

After a diet of CNN and BBC in hotels since September 3 there was satellite TV at my friends’ apartment and it was images of the joyous celebrations back home, allied to the pop of corks out of bottles of fine French champagne!, that that I started to be swept up in the celebrations.

The Springboks adopted the slogan “Now is the Time” and what a time it’s been. The French staged a magnificent World Cup and Jake White’s vision, described in his very first meeting with the group who would form the core of this World Cup squad four years ago, has been realised.

Along the way there have been some highs (winning the Tri-Nations) and lows (losing 49-0 to Australia) and plenty of controversy but the eventual destination, the Stade de France on the night of October 20, 2007, was reached and the Webb Ellis Cup presented to John Smit to be taken home to South Africa – aptly, or absurdly depending on which view you take, on a British Airways flight.

Many words have been spoken and written and in going through the files it struck me that South Africa’s victory rested on a successfully negotiating a series of crises – especially three “corner flag” moments that went the Boks’ way.

France’s shock defeat by Argentina in the opening game re-plotted a more favourable course for the Springboks but it might still have gone wrong.

But for the bounce of the ball against Tonga in Lens, tackles by JP Pietersen in the quarterfinal against Fiji in Marseille and Danie Rossouw in the Final we might now be telling a very different story.

Tonga, up against our “second” team, had the Boks pretty rattled in their final pool game in Lens on September 22. White had been forced to send on his “Galacticos” to pull the game out of the fire but it might still have gone awry right at the end had a chip to the corner by Pierre Hola bounced in-field rather than into touch.

Then came the quarterfinal against Fiji and the first tackle in the corner that can be said to have won the World Cup.

In the seething Stade Velodrome, where the Wallabies had gone out the day before against England, the Fijians were on a roll and had pulled the score back to 20-all going into the last quarter.

At that point, I have to admit, I feared the Boks would be knocked out. The momentum was so firmly with the islanders, the crowd so strongly behind them, the Boks so shaken that I could see no other outcome but defeat, especially when the big lock Ifereimi Rawaqa was sent hurtling towards the Boks’ right-hand corner for a try that would have given them the lead.

It was then that the oft-derided JP Pietersen managed to pull off the tackle of his young life, somehow managing to turn his much bigger opponent over so that he could not ground the ball, and a 23-20 lead remained intact.

It was at this moment that John Smit looked his men in the eye and snapped them back to attention with some well-chosen words; confirming the Bok skipper’s status as the most-respected captain at the tournament.

Ironically the next key moment would also come with the Boks defending their right-hand corner and this time it was Danie Rossouw’s desperate lunge which did just enough, a question of centimetres, to cause Mark Cueto’s foot to brush the touchline and deny England a try that might have changed the course of the Final.

Moments earlier Victor Matfield, appropriately for a player who would be named the man the match, had got back to make a crucial tackle on Matthew Tait after the centre had slipped past both Steyn and Montgomery.

On such minuscule things do World Cups turn. Without JP Pietersen’s tackle, without Danie Rossouw’s collision with Cueto it might have been Phil Vickery receiving rugby’s Golden Grail from Nicolas Sarkozy and not John Smit.

There were other hidden moments that won the World Cup. For instance Johann Rupert’s crucial intervention when Schalk Burger was cited and unfairly banned for four weeks, and again when Francois Steyn faced a scandalous charge of biting.

Perhaps too we should thank the overt marketing campaign that placed intense pressure on the All Blacks plus Graham Henry’s refusal to settle on his best side.

What of a draw that placed the Boks in Paris from the start? Thanks to having lost in the quarterfinals in 2003 the Springboks came into the tournament with a low seeding and thus ended up in their pool with defending champions England and also in Paris for one of the showpiece pool games at the Stade de France.

It meant they were part of the vibrant atmosphere from the start; that they had an outing at the Stade de France and that their departure from the capital city came at exactly the right time; just when they were in need of a change of scenery.

Consider that neither the All Blacks nor the Wallabies ever got to Paris!

I have mentioned John Smit’s leadership but there was also young Frans Steyn, still only 20, stepping up to the plate at inside centre when Jean de Villiers was hurt, Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha confirming their status as the Eiffel Towers of rugby and the exceptional tackling spearheaded by Juan Smith, Schalk Burger and Danie Rossouw.

And then there was Field Marshall Montgomery whose exceptional goal-kicking was arguably the key factor in the Boks’ eventual victory; consistently providing points to build or preserve a lead and placing the undefeated Boks in a position of never having to play catch-up rugby.

Montgomery successfully goaled 39 of the 44 place-kicks he attempted (88.6%) to end up the tournament’s top points-scorer with 105.

Bryan Habana was the top try-scorer with eight, the Boks were the only unbeaten side, were considered by the international media to be the most approachable of the 20 teams and in the end they scooped the IRB’s awards – exceptional for a team who have to put up with so much unwarranted extraneous interference.

World rugby champions? It has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?