‘He tackled and he bled and he cried, but he went on and on’
Imagine a Springbok as a finished product coming off a factory assembly line. What are the components required? And what does it take for them to cohere into a successful team? Author Liz McGregor spent two years doing research for her latest book, ‘The S
WHEN asked who their most influential coach was, Springboks frequently point to their first coach. And so it was that in Bethlehem one freezing night I found myself clutching the outstretched hand of a blind man and bowing my head in prayer.
Jannie and Bismarck du Plessis’s first coach was one Marius Grobler, the blind man in whose kitchen I am sitting, about to tuck into the meal we have jointly asked God to bless.
I had arranged to meet Grobler at the house at 5pm. He comes out to greet me, led by his guide dog, a Labrador named Yukon. In the lounge Grobler eases himself into an armchair directly opposite me; what little sight he has left is tunnel vision. Yukon sinks into the dog basket beside him. Every now and again Grobler reaches over to stroke the dog and he keeps the lead firmly gripped in his right hand.
I explain my mission — that I want to understand the formative influences on the Du Plessis brothers’ lives to crack the formula to producing great Springboks.
Grobler was the woodwork teacher at Truida Kestell Primary School, to which both Jannie and Bismarck were sent as weekly boarders from the age of six. He also coached the under-nine A rugby team and was housemaster at the hostel.
Tentatively, I ask about his sight. Did this not make his job difficult? He tells me that it was not until 2001, well after the boys had left Truida Kestell, that he began to experience difficulties. The diagnosis was retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that causes damage to the retina. It is incurable and results in progressively deteriorating vision. By 2006 he had to give up the job he loved.
“Bismarck was the naughtiest boy I have ever taught,” he says. “He was always playing tricks on the other kids or brawling. He was a very strong kid, coming from the farm, and he had Jannie as his big brother. But a boy needs to be naughty, and if he did something wrong, he would always admit it and take his punishment.” Punishment in those days, of course, meant a caning.
When Jannie was old enough to play in the under-nine A team, Bismarck hung around the edge of the field, desperate to be in a team with the big boys
“One day there was a touring side from Durban and one of our guys didn’t pitch up, so I said: ‘Bismarck, do you want to play?’ I slotted him in as fullback. He was such a natural. He was only seven and playing for the under-nines and he was great. He never got the ball, but he tackled and he bled and he cried, but he went on and on — this tiny guy with the big heart.
“We kept quiet about it because you weren’t allowed to play underage players, but it was at that game that I saw the potential in this guy.”
Living in the hostel made rugby — and Grobler — even more central to the boys’ lives, entailing as it did incessant, spontaneous practice.
“If there was a ball, they would play rugby. They used to play after dinner and it was the Grade 1s to Grade 7s all together, and they played hard. There was almost no grass and there you really got to see what they were like. It was in those after-dinner games that I saw it in Bismarck: this guy’s a hooker. From under-nine, he was hooker.
“So we all moved up to under-11s and I was again their coach. So two years in each age team and Bismarck always played in the A team.
“In the off-season he would tie a rope around an old tyre and drag it behind him to build up his strength. At home, their dad had built them an obstacle course and Bismarck kept asking me for one. So I asked his dad and he built another one at the school. After that, whenever you looked for Bismarck, that is where he would be. Then his dad came to me and asked if he could install a pole with a basket that could be moved up and down so that Bismarck could practise his line-out throw and vary it between the number four and number six. Once that was up, that was where Bismarck would be.
“In season, practice was between four and five, but he would be there early. And that is amazing for an 11-year-old.”
It is not something I am used to, having an intense conversation with an almost blind man, and I keep forgetting he cannot really see me. So I apologise as I put on my coat, worrying that he will see it as a comment on his hospitality — it is after dark and the temperature has dropped to below zero. There is one heater, but the room is chilly. He does not say anything and it quickly occurs to me: he did not have to know.
Yukon slumbers peacefully at his side, his comfort zone. The other source of comfort is his wife, Helene, who comes in every now and then with refreshments — tea when I arrive, a glass of red wine at 6pm, an invitation to stay for dinner at 7pm. It i’s a long conversation and I am enjoying it, as is Grobler.
It is clearly immensely gratifying to him that his charges have done so brilliantly. He remains close not only to the Du Plessis family, but also to the parents of Frans Steyn, another of his early charges. The right parents, he says, are a crucial component in the making of these Boks.
“The parents were always there for them, always doing their best for their children, and that is what a child needs. I used to get a lot of parents
You must teach them that life is not just about winning. Sometimes you will lose
just pushing and pushing, and if the team loses it is always the coach’s fault.
“Francois [du Plessis] was the opposite: he would come and ask me what he could do to help. He devised a scrumming machine attached to a tractor and he would bring that in from the farm for the boys to practise on. A whole scrummaging machine! Francois would sit on the tractor and manoeuvre the thing up and down so they could simulate scrumming. He made it so great, and those boys loved scrumming from early days. We scrummed the other guys into the ground every time. He never pushed — always just helped.”
And not only his own children. Just up the hill from Truida Kestell is a children’s home. “There were always orphans in our team, and Jo-Helene and Francois made sure they had the clothes they needed and the transport. And the boys were the same.
“With both the Steyns’ and the Du Plessis’ parents, if things were not going well, they would say to the kids, ‘Don’t worry. Môre is nog ’n dag.’ Not pushing, pushing, like the other parents.”
It is important to teach kids balance, he says.
“You must teach them that life is not just about winning. Sometimes you will lose, and the parents must stay with you when you are losing. That is what a good parent does: he stays with them in loss as well. Some parents, when we lose, blame the ref or the coach or say the kid didn’t play to his full potential. So if we lose, it is someone else to blame. But if we win, they are with you all the way.
“The third Du Plessis son, Tabbi, is not so good at sport, but he is such a nice bloke. Tabbi might think: ‘My two brothers are Springboks, so where do I fit in?’ People might think he would not get the sunlight. It takes a very special family to get that right.”
Bismarck might have had the superior athletic talent, but it was Jannie who starred academically.
“Biz struggled in the lower grades. He would always rather play than study, but look at him now — you wonder if his teachers up till Grade 7 would think he would have a university degree.”
To Jannie, schoolwork came easily. “When Jannie was in Grade 7, I introduced a system in the hostel whereby guys who got over 90% could study in the dormitory. They didn’t have to go to the study hall with the others. Jannie was the first to win that privilege.”
Helene calls us in to supper. Spread out on the kitchen table are steaming dishes of chicken, potatoes, carrots, cabbage and peas. Grobler, led by Yukon, takes his place at the head of the table. With my wine topped up, I am about to tuck into the fragrant pile in front of me when Grobler calls a halt, stretching one hand out to his wife and the other to me. We bow our heads and pray.