Book extract

In this extract from Jamie Wall’s latest book The Hundred Years’ War, he sets the scene for the first meeting of the All Blacks and Springboks as full professionals in 1996.

We bring you an extract from Jamie Wall’s new book – The Hundred Years’ War – on the often bitter All Blacksspringboks rivalry.

rugby author Jamie wall, who now lives in the City of sails. Photo: Hamish Cross

Ayear can feel like a long time, but this was something different. When the All blacks touched down in Cape Town, the first leg of the first full tour of South Africa in two decades, it seemed like the sport they were there to play had completely changed from when they’d lost the Rugby World Cup final to the springboks the previous June. Firstly, they were officially getting paid to be there. secondly, all of them had already had a trip to south Africa earlier that year as part of a new competition called super 12. The squad that walked off the plane was the biggest an All blacks contingent had ever been. Thirty-six players collected their luggage and took a team bus to their hotel, knowing that this might very well be their last chance to achieve a feat that had never been managed before. This was a chance to win a series, to do what was right by the men who came before them. not just that, but to do it the right way in a country that had started to put its past behind it. It was six years since Mandela had been released from prison, and four since the springboks had been readmitted to international rugby. Mandela had visited new Zealand in november 1995, meeting with antiapartheid protesters and confessing that “he would never forget the day the game at Hamilton was called off.” For a lot of people around the world, nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar’s iconic moment together with the world Cup is where the credits rolled on the rugby story of redemption. In fact, it’s where they literally rolled in the case of the movie Invictus, where Morgan Freeman played Mandela and Matt Damon was Pienaar. The 2009 film did pretty well around the world except, unsurprisingly, in new Zealand.

Of course, simply holding up a trophy wasn’t going to fix the centuries of racial division in south Africa. The hopeful view was to think that it would only be up from there, though, with rugby now being a game for all colours with paths to inclusion to help the springboks tap into the vast player and supporter base that had cried tears of joy at the world Cup win. what actually happened in the following couple of years couldn’t have been much worse. but there was another big ruction that had to take place before the All blacks and springboks would meet on the rugby field again, and their respective captains would be right in the thick of it. Presented with contracts for Packer’s world rugby Championship (wrc), the springboks were urged by Louis Luyt to think twice before turning their backs on the jersey that just won the world Cup. sean Fitzpatrick and Francois Pienaar were key players in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 world Cup and rugby’s light-speed transition to having players paid and acquiring bigger broadcasting deals. both had pinned their colours to the mast of Kerry Packer’s rebel organisation that sought to break away from the Irb and national unions, which is what Packer had done with cricket in the 1970s until the governing bodies eventually agreed to be co-opted into the fold.

It then turned out that Pienaar had been employed by the wrc to recruit his fellow players, with the promise of a lucrative payout if he could reel them all in. Luyt went on the offensive and accused him of selling out his country. Fitzpatrick and wallabies captain Phil Kearns were also in on the action, corralling players to sign with the wrc. In the end, the national bodies won out. In new Zealand it was due in no small part to Jeff Wilson and Josh Kronfeld signing with the NZRU first, which allowed them to go public and put pressure on the rest of the All blacks to follow suit. sky Television in new Zealand purchased the broadcasting rights to the new super 12 and Tri nations series to be held in 1996, meaning that for the first time, fans would have to pay to watch the All blacks play. After all, the money that they had been promised as employees had to come from somewhere.