HAPPY 26TH ANNIVERSARY TO FIRST RAINBOW WARRIORS

AN ANNIVERSARY day, as big as winning the Rugby World Cup, must be acknowledged and celebrated and revisited every time and, on this day (June 24) 26 years ago, I was about to settle into my seat at Ellis Park in Joburg to soak up the atmosphere of what was to be such a significant day in the history of rugby in this country.

It was the day I experienced a predominantly white South African rugby crowd chant the name “Nelson” in honour of the late president Nelson Mandela, when he walked out onto the field wearing Francois Pienaar’s No 6 Springboks jersey. It is a day I will never forget in my rugby writing and sport writing career. There have been subsequent World Cup triumphs, in 2007 in Paris, France, and most recently the momentous occasion when Siya Kolisi lifted the very same World Cup trophy that former president Nelson Mandela had handed to Francois Pienaar as the captain of the World Cup winning team in 1995.

There was the Boeing 747 flyover of Ellis Park, with the message “Good Luck Bokke” written underneath the plane for all of us to see and there was a carnival atmosphere in the ground that would mirror the one in the streets of South Africa later that evening when the Springboks had been confirmed World Cup winners and the best rugby team in the world.

Siya’s moment in 2019 was special but the 1995 moment was no less memorable for all that it symbolised in that moment and on that day. The significance of the victory should not be diminished because it took the sport’s custodians two decades to fulfil what Madiba had started on that podium.

I’ve always countered the reluctance in South Africa to celebrate our sporting heroes beyond the moment in which they become these heroes. It is a bit like only celebrating the birth of a child, but ignoring the existence of that child with each passing year.

So much has happened in those 26 years in what has been a rollercoaster ride for South African rugby, and the one celebration I’d want to see happen is the coming together of the three World Cup winning squads, and hopefully this will happen when crowds are allowed back into a room and spectators are filling the stands again.

For now, on this day, the celebration is to the captain Francois Pienaar and his original Rainbow Warriors. Thank you for those 100 minutes of toil, torture and ultimately triumph. Francois, thank you for leading a group of men whose commitment gave us the iconic image of Madiba on the podium alongside you. It is a photo that sits alongside Siya Kolisi’s World Cup final moment as the story of Springbok rugby’s evolution.

I will always be grateful to have experienced that moment in person, and to have professionally made a contribution to the telling of that story makes me even more privileged. Four of the heroes of that day, Chester Williams, Joost van der Westhuizen, Ruben Kruger and the coach Kitch Christie are no longer with us, but what they accomplished on June 24, 1995 will always be with us. Happy 26th anniversary Mark Andrews, Robbie Brink, James Dalton, Naka Drotske, Os du Randt, Marius Hurter, Pieter Hendriks, Andre Joubert, Gavin Johnson, Hannes Strydom, Hennie le Roux, Japie Mulder, Krynauw Otto, Garry Pagel, Francois Pienaar, Adriaan Richter, Chris Rossouw, Johan Roux, Christiaan Scholtz, Joel Stransky, Rudolf Straeuli, Balie Swart, Brendan Venter, Kobus Wiese, Chester Williams, Ruben Kruger, Joost van der Westhuizen, James Small and coach Kitch Christie.

I’ll remember June 24, as much for being the birth of Springbok rugby in a democratic South Africa, as it is an anniversary of the day on which the Springboks officially ruled the rugby world.