LIVING HIS DREAM
With one ‘beautiful scrum ball’, Joost proved his brilliance – and helped to create South African rugby history
APERFECT pass that led to the winning kick – and one of the most unforgettable moments in world sport. This was the feat that confirmed what rugby fans had suspected ever since 22-year-old Joost Heystek van der Westhuizen scored a try in his debut Test against Argentina in Buenos Aires: this was a guy with big-match temperament. It was the Boks’ first Rugby World Cup and there was everything to play for. In extra time the Boks scrummed down against the mighty All Blacks on their 25 m line. With the scoreboard reading 12-12 it was make or break. Would Joost blow it if he was caught in possession by the now desperate Kiwis? A knock-on, maybe, a pass to the wrong man or a fumble?
Not a chance. After more than 90 gruelling minutes Joost was still 100 percent focused and there was a spring in his step as he fed the ball into the scrum, then moved around to his eighth man.
He avoided a frantic attempt by the Kiwi No 9, Graeme Bachop, to stop his pass and got the ball to Joel Stransky with an accurate pass.
Stransky took one step forward before executing a perfect drop kick and . . . the rest is rugby history – so special it was captured in the big screen epic Invictus, starring Hollywood heavyweights Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.
“Beautiful scrum ball!” one commentator enthused.
It later emerged the Boks changed their plans at the last moment. They’d originally planned to attack with their loose forwards, Joel revealed to YOU 18 years later, “but I realised there was an opportunity for a drop goal.
“Joost and I communicated well and we changed the move, his pass was perfect
and the ball went over. It was that simple.”
It was a key moment in South African rugby and in Joost’s glorious career.
“But he had many absolutely brilliant moments,” Joel adds. For instance “that tackle on Lomu” in the same final.
There hasn’t been as daunting a wing since Jonah Lomu. At 1,96 m tall, weighing 120 kg and capable of running the 100 m in 10,8 seconds, the colossal Kiwi was unstoppable in full flight.
When he suddenly took an inside pass from Andrew Mehrtens, catching Joel and Ruben Kruger on the wrong foot, he headed straight for Joost. Ellis Park Stadium held its breath – but, as Joost’s 1995 teammate Kobus Wiese told us in an interview a few years ago, “Joost was never afraid of anything.”
As Joost himself put it in his biography Joost: The Man In The Mirror, “My job was to look after [Andrew] Mehrtens and, as cross defence, to go after Lomu. When I saw Mehrtens making an inside pass to him I realised my name is either going to be Mike Catt for the rest of my life, or I was going to take him out.” (Catt was spectacularly knocked down in the semifinal, one of several English players run over by a speeding Lomu.)
“It was unforgettable seeing how happy we made everybody,” Joost said. “Everything I’d ever dreamt of in my career had come together in that moment.”
FIRSTTRI NATIONSTITLE With a world cup title to his name, Joost was also a key player in coach Nick Mallett’s Bok team that won SA’s first Tri Nations tournament in 1998. And their 29-15 victory over Australia at Ellis Park ensured Mallett’s team concluded that year’s tournament undefeated.
Under his guidance South Africa eventually set a record of 17 Test victories in a row – and Joost was in the starting lineups for most of those matches. He was also the Boks’ top try-scorer at the time.
In that Tri Nations he boosted the Boks’ record attempt with several tries, such as the ones in the nail-biting 14-13 victory over Australia in Perth and the 24-23 win over New Zealand in Durban. In this match, with the score at 5-23, the Boks fought back in the final quarter. Captain Gary Teichmann said afterwards it was Joost’s try that inspired the team to start fighting back.
Joost also played in 12 of the 14 Tests the Boks won in a row under coach Kitch Christie. CAPTAIN OFTHE 1999 WORLD CUPTEAM After the controversial decision to fire Teichmann, Mallett offered the captaincy to Joost, who had to carry a great responsibility – to defend the Boks’ title in Britain, with Wales as the host nation.
He led from the outset and scored a try in South Africa’s first match. It was a thrilling encounter against the Five Nations champions, Scotland. The Boks eventually got the upper hand and won 46-29.
But the high point was the match against England. In the seventh minute, with no room to move, Joost somehow got around the English defenders to score a one-handed try in the corner before being tackled into touch.
With Joost at the helm the Boks crushed England 44-21. Sadly what many fans remember of the tournament is the Boks’ heartbreakingly narrow defeat in the semifinal when Wallaby Stephen Larkham’s wobbly drop kick in extra time shattered the Boks’ dreams. GOOD, BETTER, JOOST He was the Boks’ top try-scorer until Bryan Habana bettered his record in 2011.
Joost’s best moment? “Possibly his try against England at Twickenham towards the end of 1995,” Joel recalls. “Also the try he scored in the corner against England in the 1999 world cup.”
In an interview with The Weekender, Joost also singled out that Twickenham try. “I got the ball from a prop and I broke away,” he said. “I had to jink and jive, kick, push away tacklers, dodge players, chip the ball . . . It was like a dog competition for humans. I had to use most of my skills to score.” CURRIE CUP: JOOST’S VICTORIOUS BULLS 1998 The Blue Bulls almost didn’t make it to the final against Western Province at Loftus. They were behind 3-17 in the semifinal against the Sharks when Joost, standing in as captain for Kruger, changed the course of the match, leading the Bulls to a 31-17 victory. They then won the thrilling final 24-20. 2002 As captain, Joost led the Bulls to another title win at Ellis Park. Young flyhalf Derick Hougaard scored almost all his team’s 31 points to the Lions’ seven. MORETHAN A SCRUMHALF Joost has been named one of the world’s best No 9s.
“He was an unbelievable player: he had great strength, was quick off the mark,
great speed, good stepping,” Joel says.
“He had that individual brilliance you need in a team and was so unpredictable we his teammates often didn’t know what he was going to do next,” Kobus adds.
Rival scrumhalf Matt Dawson of England also had high praise for Joost. “He was part of a golden era of scrumhalves,” he told the BBC. “He’s not only one of the greatest scrumhalves of all time but probably one of the top 10 players in the history of the game.”
Mike Phillips, Wales’ unconventional 101-kg former scrumhalf, once put it like this in a tweet: “Mate, you’re my hero – the reason why I play No 9!” SUPER-ATHLETE At 1,85 m tall and weighing 92 kg, Joost was large for a scrumhalf yet extremely athletic. “Joost could do strength training with the big okes and speed with the fast okes,” Joel recalls.
In The Man In The Mirror, Joost recalls his resting pulse rate was 38 beats a minute when fitness-obsessed Christie coached the Boks. “Whatever he asked us to do, we did extra. If he said 40 pressups we’d do 60.” THE BAD AND THE GOOD Fast-food chain Nando’s created several adverts poking fun at Joost during his highly publicised personal dramas. But in 2013, two years after he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), the company honoured him for his struggle by coming up with a new slogan, which was presented to Joost in a framed portrait. “To the No 9 who’ll always be our No 1,” it said. TRIED AND TESTED Until 2011 when he was overtaken by Bryan Habana, Joost held the record for the most Springbok tries scored in Test matches – 38 in total. ACCOLADES APLENTY Joost was nominated as South African player of the year six times. He won the SA young player of the year award in 1992. In 2007 he was made a member of the International Rugby Hall of Fame and named one of the best players of all time. OTHER FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH JOOST’S ILLNESS English actor David Niven, Chinese leader Mao Zedong and South African art-gallery owner Everard Read all battled MND.
American professor Morrie Schwartz became world famous after the memoir about him, Tuesdays With Morrie, sold 15 million copies. The book, by newspaper sport columnist Mitch Albom, chronicled the professor’s battle with the illness.
Scientist and Nobel Prize winner Stephen Hawking suffers from a less aggressive form of MND than the one that claimed Joost’s life.