Ollie has the last laugh

When the good burghers of Bloemfontein, beer in hand around the braai fire, sit down years from now and start to recall the epic victory the Cheetahs scored in the Battle of Loftus they would do well to remember the role of the Burger King.

They will talk emotionally about “ou” Naka, about “oupa” Os weeping in the dressing room, about the role of Rassie, the fabulous winning try that took Meyer Bosman from obscurity and into the annals of rugby lore so they might just forget about the crucial part played by double sub Ollie le Roux.

A component of Erasmus’ gambit to rotate his props Le Roux did have a crucial role to play on the field because it was his tackle, shortly after halftime, that caused JP Nel to lose the ball and miss scoring what could have been a killer try but it was what he did beforehand that upset the Bulls most.

Le Roux’s inflammatory remarks about the Bulls in a website column – especially the statement that “there's a fine line between playing the game with honour and being arrogant. I've found genuine arrogance in the Bulls and that has irritated me” – were roundly condemned as being ill-considered and likely only to galvanise his team’s opponents.

The chunky prop had landed himself a suspension (for punching Johann Wasserman) when the Cheetahs played the Bulls in the league stage of the competition and his words left little doubt of bad blood between the two teams and of scores to settle.

Le Roux’s remarks were picked up and inflated in the Bulls-loving Beeld newspaper, with arrogant becoming “windgat”, and there was no doubt a figurative line had been drawn in the sand.

Most commentators thought he had overstepped the mark – and I still believe it is wrong to incite one’s opponents – but what we observers (and I was one of them) failed to factor in was the inherent machismo of the Blue Bulls.

Ollie had managed to rile the Pretorians and instead of the Bulls channelling their irritation into a clinical performance – such as the Springboks did at Twickenham some years ago when Mike Catt said Francois Pienaar was an ordinary player – they reacted like, well, bully boys.

Instead of going out and doing the things they do well the Bulls seemed to be out to show the Cheetahs how tough they are and resolved to settle a few scores.

They allowed their concentration to waver and the upshot was that they made uncharacteristic errors, such as kicking in-range penalties to the corners, and their lineout, arguably the best in the world, fell apart.

It harked back to another massive upset in the Currie Cup Final when Griquas beat the Bulls in Kimberley in 1970. In those pre-television days the disruptive tactics were more crude and a good deal more direct but they also involved knocking an overwhelming favourite out of kilter.

Thus, Griqua coach Ian Kirkpatrick instructed Jannie van Aswegen to upset Bulls lock Johan Spies – which he did by punching him! – and for the rest of the match the star-studded Northern Transvaal (Frik du Preez et al) sought retribution, playing the man rather than the ball, and Griquas scored a win that, if there were a scale of upsets, was even bigger than the Cheetahs marching to Pretoria and leaving with the Cup.

Firing off the verbals was a risky thing for Ollie to do, given a long history in sport of how imprudent remarks have a way of boomeranging, but in this instance Ollie had the last laugh and the Bulls had only themselves to blame.