by John Carlin
Louis Luyt would not have known what to make of it a couple of years earlier, but now he got it too. Mandela knew this was the political opportunity of his life and, by God, he seized it! said Luyt. When that crowd exploded, you could see: he was South Africas president that day without one vote against. Yes, the presidential inauguration a year earlier was a great thing, but it was the conclusion of an election which some had won and some had lost. Here we were all on the same side. Not one vote against. He was our king that day.
That was the point. Mandela had accurately gauged the power of his gesture when he had said that wearing the jersey would have a terrific impact on whites. He was everybodys king that day. He had already had one coronation, at the soccer stadium in Soweto on the day after his release. That day, he was crowned king of black South Africa. Five years later, his second coronation was taking place at Afrikanerdoms holy of holies, the national rugby stadium.
Van Zyl Slabbert, Morné du Plessiss youthful inspiration and Braam Viljoens boss at the Pretoria think tank, was in the stadium. You can have no idea what it meant to me to see these classic Boers all around me, with their potbellies, in their shorts and long socks, real AWB types, drinking brandy and Cokes, to see these guys, these northern Transvaal rednecks singing Shosholoza, led on by a young black guy, and cheering Mandela, said Slabbert, aghast at the recollection of the scene. You would have expected him when he became president to say, Im going to get you . . .! Yet, no, he contradicts every stereotype of vengeance and retribution.
Archbishop Tutu, who as a child would tramp over to Ellis Park to watch games with his mothers sandwiches, had to live with the cruel irony of being prevented from attending the game due to a prior engagement in the United States. But he would not have missed the game for anything. He watched it, early in the morning, in a bar in San Francisco.
Nelson Mandela has a knack of doing just the right thing and being able to carry it off with aplomb, Tutu said. Some other political leader, head of state, if they had tried to do something like he did, they would have fallen flat on their faces. But it was just the right thing. Its not anything that you can contrive . . . I believe that that was a defining moment in the life of our country.
No one captured the sea change that Mandela had effected better than Tokyo Sexwale, who had spent thirteen years on Robben Island convicted of terrorism and conspiracy to overthrow the government; who out of prison had become the assassinated Chris Hanis closest friend; who as premier of Gauteng (previously Transvaal) Province had become one of the half dozen most prominent figures in the ANC.
This was the moment when I understood more clearly than ever before that the liberation struggle of our people was not so much about liberating blacks from bondage, Sexwale said, picking up on the core lesson he had learned from Mandela in prison, but more so, it was about liberating white people from fear. And there it was. Nelson! Nelson! Nelson! Fear melting away.
And what of the last Doubting Thomas? What of Justice Bekebeke, the only one of the gang of eight at the Paballelo barbecue not wearing a Springbok jersey? It was a defining moment in his life too. He finally capitulated, powerless before the rushing tide of new South African sentiment that Mandela had unleashed.
An hour before the game I was still torn and confused, he said. But then we turned on the TV and we saw these guys singing Shosholoza and then that amazing fly-past and then the old man, my president, wearing the Springbok jersey. Well, I was battling! I still could not quite shake off the old resentment and hatred, yet something was happening to me, and I realized that I was changing, I was softening, until I just had to give up, to surrender. And I said to myself, well, this is the new reality. There is no going back: the South African team is now my team, whoever they are, whatever their color.
This was a watershed for me. For my entire relationship with my country, with white South Africans. From that day on everything changed. Everything was redefined.
CHAPTER XVIII
BLOOD IN THE THROAT
I couldnt sing the anthem, François Pienaar admitted. I dared not. He had been desperate to rise to the occasion, to set an example, not to let Mandela down. He had rehearsed the scene over and over in his mind. But when the time came, when the two teams lined up on the side of the pitch before the game and the band struck up the first strains of Nkosi Sikelele, he couldnt open his mouth.
Because I knew that if I did, Id fall apart. Id just crumble, right there. I was so emotional, the Springbok captain said, that I wanted to cry. Sean Fitzpatrick [the All Black captain] told me later that he looked over and saw a tear roll down my cheek. But that was nothing compared to what I was feeling inside. It was such a proud moment in my life and I stood there and the whole stadium was reverberating. And it was just too much. I tried to find my fiancée, to focus on her, but I couldnt find her. So I just bit my lip. I bit it so hard I felt the blood rolling down my throat.
What had brought Pienaar to the emotional brink was Mandelas visit to the Springboks dressing room ten minutes before. Between the jumbo jet flyover and stepping out onto the field in his green jersey, Mandela had asked Louis Luyt to take him down to the bowels of the stadium to say a few words to the players.
Pienaar recalled the scene. I had just got strapped up and there we all were, in a state of tension like wed never known, and so much was going through my mind, knowing that this was the biggest thing everone shot, one opportunity to seize everything youve always wanted. And I was just thinking about all that, but at the same time with so much attention to all the details of the game, and then, suddenly, there he was. I didnt know he was coming, and even less did I know that he was going to wear the Springbok jersey. He was saying Good luck, and he turned around and on his back there was this number 6, and that was me . . .
You know, the passionate supporters, theyre the ones who wear the jersey of their team. So now here I am seeing him walking into the dressing room, in this moment of all moments, dressed like another passionate fan, but then I see that it is my jersey he is wearing. There are no words to describe the emotions that ran through my body.
As he had a year earlier at Silvermine, Mandela caught the Springboks by surprise. As Morné du Plessis remembered it, before he entered the room the silence was absolute. Suddenly the players saw him and everybody was laughing, smiling, clapping. The tension just fell away. This time Mandelas speech was shorter, more familiar, and more direct than it had been on the day before the Australia game. Look here, chaps, he said. You are playing the All Blacks. They are one of the most powerful teams in the rugby world but you are even more powerful. And just remember that this entire crowd, both black and white, are behind you, and that Im behind you.
Mandela then went around the room, shaking hands and sharing a few words with each player. As he walked out the door, François Pienaar called out, Sir, I like the jersey you are wearing.
Mandela realized that his visit might raise the Springboks blood pressure past its already dangerous level. But, he said later, his remarks were calculated to encourage them.
His calculations were, once again, on the money. Stransky, who as fly half would arguably endure the most stress that day, confirmed that he got the mood just right. It was so inspirational. I would have thought it was completely impossible to up the feelings amongst us before the game, but Madiba did. He upped us even further.
Louis Luyt, who had accompanied Mandela into the dressing room, agreed. He charged them up with those words saying the whole country was behind them. It was a short speech but, my God, that was going to get these guys to play like hell!
Three minutes later, as the chants of Nelson! Nelson! still washed around the stadium, it was the players turn to take the stage. Now it was up to them. Responsibility for the well-being of the country passed into the players hands. Nothing else would matter fo
r the next hour and a half. If South Africa lost, there would still be things to salvage. There was honor in having made it to the final. The nation had come together like never before. One Team, One Country had ceased to be a slick marketing mans slogan. But if South Africa lost, the whole thing would end up as a limp anticlimax, as a bittersweet memory best forgotten. The great Nelson! Nelson! moment would live on, but without the joyous, Beethovens Ninth, trumpet-blast associations that victory would evoke.
To seal the day, to make it eternal, the Springboks had to beat the odds and win. Which meant they had to stop Jonah Lomu. They got their first live view of him when they emerged from their dressing room into the players tunnel in preparation for the two teams side-by-side march onto the field. The All Blacks had a formidable team, packed with famous rugby names. But all eyes were on Lomu, as most of the Springboks thoughts had been ever since they had seen the giant sprinter reduce the pride of England a week earlier to a rabble of bereft urchins.
He was so big, Stransky said. It was impossible not to admire him. I couldnt take my eyes off him in the tunnel. He looked like a mountain. One that we had to climb!
A mountain that, to be more specific, James Small had to climb. I remember seeing Jonah and thinking Oh, fuck! Small said, with characteristic concision. The whole team was aware of the weight on the Englishman, Lomus designated marker, who they noticed had been more than usually silent on the bus to the stadium. It was almost the only thing on my mind. I knew that if he got a two- or three-yard start hed be gone. But the rest of the players were really behind me, making a point of showing their willingness to back me up once Jonah got the ball. Chester Williams, whose earlier differences with Small were submerged in the solidarity of the moment, was the first to step forward to reassure him: All youve got to do is hold him up and well come. Dont worry. Ill be there covering your back.
Over the previous week, the South African press had seen the emergence of a new kind of rugby expert, the Lomulogist. Everyone had their theories on how to stop him. One of them was the straightforward approach Chester Williams proposed. If Small just managed to hold him up for a second, shake him off his stride, the rest of the team would pile in on top of him. Others suggested that Lomu was not as strong in mind as he was in body. Perhaps he had something about him of Sonny Liston, the fearsome heavyweight champion whom Muhammad Ali defeated not by punishing his body, but by playing tricks with his mind, jangling his brittle self-esteem. Two days before the match the South African press had quoted amply the words of a former Australian rugby captain who said that the key to neutralizing the Lomu threat was to to try and wreck his confidence early in the match. The idea was that Lomu became unstoppable if he believed he was unstoppable. If he lost that belief, he would crumble. The Australian said it would be helpful, for example, for Stransky to kick some high, difficult balls in his direction, pressuring him to fumble them, or, best of all, to tackle him hard to the ground once or twice in the first ten minutes. Right from the word go, the Springboks objective had to be confuse the big fella, provide him with a mental setback or two.
There is evidence that Mandela tried to give Lomu a mental setback or two himself. As Linga Moonsamy later revealed, before going into the Springbok dressing room, Mandela visited the All Black one. Jonah Lomu close up was huge, Moonsamy recalled. But you could also see immediately that he was timid. Sort of daunted by Mandela. The New Zealand guys all had their shirts off and when Mandela stood next to Lomu, I heard Mandela say Wow! He shook hands with all the players and he wished them luck. Mandela had never been less sincere, and the All Blacks knew it. There was one detail the New Zealanders could not avoid registering, said Moonsamy, chuckling. He was wearing the green Springbok jersey! I really did wonder afterward if going in to see them had been his way of sending them a deliberately ambiguous message.
Fifteen minutes later, Mandela was out on the field, going down the line of New Zealand players, shaking hands with each. When he got to Lomu, Mandela greeted the man he had barely just met like a long-lost friend. Ah, hello Jonah! How are you? Mandela beamed. According to a TV journalist close by, Lomu looked like he was going to shit himself !
The last piece of pageantry before the game began was the All Blacks traditional Haka. The team had been performing this ritual before the start of international matches for more than a hundred years. It was a Maori war dance designed to instill terror in enemy ranks. The fifteen All Blacks would stand in the middle of the playing field in broad formation, each man spreading his legs wide apart in a half crouch. At a cry from the captain, the dance would begin. Amid much snarling and sticking out of tongues, great stomping, thigh-slapping, chest-puffing, and menacing gesticulation generally, the All Blacks uttered a chant that sounded far more alarming in the bellowed Maori original than it does on a page in English translation: The rousing finale went:
T?nei te tangata p?huruhuru
N?na nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te r?
? upane, ka upane
? upane, ka upane
Whiti te r?, h?!
This the hairy man that stands here
Who brought the sun and caused it to shine
A step upward, another step upward
A step upward, another step upward! The sun shines!
Fortunately for the All Blacks, their rivals do not usually have the translation ready at hand. What rivals tend at do is try to stare them down, or smirk with seeming contempt, or feign indifference. None of which are ever entirely convincing, so hypnotically menacing is the spectacle. On this occasion, though, there was a slight, but significant, break with protocol. Halfway through the performance, which lasts about a minute and twenty seconds, Jonah Lomu broke with the pattern of the dance and started advancing slowly but pointedly, eyes staring, toward James Small. But then something happened that few people in the stadium or watching on TV saw, but every player on the field registered. Kobus Wiese, standing next to Small, broke protocol himself and took two or three steps in Lomus direction, cutting diagonally in front of Small. Kobus broke the line as if to say to Lomu, To get to him, you have to get through me first, was how Pienaar remembered it. They were small gestures from two big men, infantile ones in the broader scheme of the days events, but they had their impact. Even before the referees whistle signaled the start of the game, it was Springboks 1, Lomu 0.
If the focus of Springbok fans was on James Small, the greater pressure was on Stransky. Because of the nature of the position he played, the kicking job, spotlight would be more on him than on any other individual player. François Pienaar and Kobus Wiese could, to a degree, hide within the grunting hurly-burly of the forward scrum. If they made a mistake, few outside the team or the sphere of expert pundits would necessarily notice. The bad news was that, by the same token, they rarely received the credit they deserved. What Stransky did or did not do, on the other hand, absolutely nobody missed. His position at fly half was the most visible in the team. But he was also the player in charge of taking the kicks, and it was often on whether a kick went over and through the goalpostswith the two points or, more often, three points that went with itthat the outcome of a game turned. If the kick sailed true, you were a hero. If it did not, you ran the risk of eternal ignominy or, in the best of cases, endless self-recrimination, like a soccer player who misses a penalty. And, like a soccer player in such circumstances, so much turned on so little. The difference between glory and disaster lay in a subtle change in the direction of the wind, in almost microscopic movements of the muscles, tendons, and nerves in the ankle, the knee, the hip, the toe.
Rugby can be a spectacular game to watch, even for people not familiar with its intricacies. It combines the tactics, power, and speed of American football with the flow, expansiveness, collective effort, and individual ball talent of soccer. To play the game at the highest level you have to combine the strength required in the one with the
fitness required in the other. When the game is played well, with pace and skill, the spectacle is both crunchingly gladiatorial and pleasing to the eye. If the game is a close contest, even better, for then art and theater combine.
The 1995 Rugby World Cup final produced more theater than art. It was a grinding game. It was attrition. It was trench warfare, not pretty to watch. But in terms of sheer drama, it couldnt be beat.
The whole of South Africa was hooked; the whole gamut of races, religions, tribes, were glued to their TV sets. From Kobie Coetsee, who found a crowded bar near his Cape Town home to watch the game; to Constand Viljoen, who saw it with friends, also in Cape Town; to Archbishop Tutu, who saw it at the Blarney Stone pub in San Francisco, draped in the South African flag; to Niël Barnard who watched it at his home in Pretoria with his wife and three children; to Justice Bekebeke with his old friends and comrades in Paballelo; to Judge Basson, the man who sentenced them to death, who was watching the game at his home in Kimberley. All of them were, at last, on the same team. As was Eddie von Maltitz, watching with his old Boer kommandos down on the farm, in the Orange Free State. He was now as committed to the cause of the Springboks and Nelson Mandela as he had been once to Eugene Terreblanches AWB.
We were praying that day, man, he said. We were so tense. Praying, praying. If we could beat that New Zealand team, we as a nation could do so much. We were so, so united, and now there was a chance we could be even more united. It was so important for South Africa to win.
So important that the streets were deserted, as only the pilot Laurie Kay and his crew members could testify. He landed the plane before the game had begun but there was no ground staff at the airport to greet them. Unless they resorted to an extreme measure like deploying the emergency slide, they were trapped. Finally, their driver came along, found some stairs, and rolled them up to the plane. There was no one at all on the streets. It was like something from that post-apocalyptic novel On the Beach. I made it home in ten minutes flat. Which meant he must have been going faster on the road than he had in the air over Ellis Park.