Fleet-footed Habana leaves a legacy of genius and grit
One afternoon, many years ago, 2003 as I recall, I ventured into the beer tent at the King Edward VII School Rugby Festival. It was a Thursday afternoon, I think. I could be very wrong. It was many years ago. My colleague from The Star, Stuart Hess, and I took a break to refresh parched throats.
The second beer had just been ordered when two young men wearing Lions training kit walked past. One stopped. “Hello, Mr McCallum.” He came over and shook my hand. We exchanged pleasantries, I introduced him to Stuart, he bade farewell and walked on. “Who’s that?” asked Stuart. “Not sure,” I answered. “I think he plays for the Lions’ Vodacom Cup team.”
That young man who called me “mister” was one Bryan Habana. I am awful with names, but I should have remembered that one. I had watched him play a few weeks before, having been asked to cover a Vodacom Cup match. Those were the days when there were enough writers in a sports department to send someone to cover it.
Habana was an outside centre in those days and he was extremely quick. I recall him chasing his own grubber, perhaps meant for the wing, and picking it up for a score.
I went on to watch him in a few more games that season.
I marked his name. I didn’t forget it.
Habana was born in Benoni in 1983. As a son of the East Rand, I have taken it upon myself to remind Habana that a little part of his success comes from being born in such a blessed place.
He wasn’t really a rugby fan until the 1995 Rugby World Cup, when a road trip with his dad to see the opening match of the tournament, between SA and Australia, and being at the final, changed that. Rugby became everything to him.
He was a little smaller when I first met him. After being advised that he needed to be heavier if he wanted to play for the Boks, he ate four meals a day through the rest of 2003 and put on 7kg.
He moved out to the wing. Jake White called him up for the end-of-year tour and he scored a try with his first touch against England. He had already decided to leave the Lions for the Bulls. I asked him why at a preseason get-together, when the Bulls played the Sharks near Sun City. He said it was because he believed the Bulls could push him more.
They were, he said, about three years ahead of the Lions in their coaching structures and standards. Habana always had an awareness of where he needed to be.
That he stayed in SA at all in 2004 is a story in itself. The night after the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in Paris in 2007, he spoke of how White had influenced his career: “I’m really sorry Jake is leaving,” Habana told The Guardian’s Don McRae. “He’s a special guy and, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be playing for SA. I was a week away from going to the Brumbies in 2004 and that would have meant the end of my international future for SA. But Jake was the one who persuaded me to stay. He will be a huge loss because he brought us from the depths of despair to being the proudest rugby nation on Earth.”
Habana ruled the planet in 2007. There were times when he seemed untouchable. He scored eight tries in the Rugby World Cup, the winning try in the Super Rugby final and was the IRB Player of the Year.
In 2007, in the wee hours of the night, after the noise of the final had died down, Habana sat in the team hotel, cradling the World Cup trophy in his arms.
“Whatever happens next week or next month, one thing won’t change. This baby, for the next four years, belongs to us,” he said.
The last 16 years of Habana’s play belong to South African rugby history now that he has retired. He is one of the true greats of the sport — a name that should never be forgotten, not even on a sunny afternoon in a beer garden.