FROM ZEROS TO

IF the first week of the World Cup was filled with hope for the Springboks, then the final week was one of conviction.

I was based in Johannesburg, which meant I could spend the week staying at home. It made the experience all the more memorable. Everything was familiar, except the absolute support for the Springboks.

I’d never known so much pro-Springboks sentiment in the week leading into the World Cup final.

Corporates were backing the Springboks to win. There were cash incentives to charities for every tackle made on the All Blacks giant young winger Jonah Lomu. There were other motivations for every point the Boks would score. Some charity would be the beneficiary.

It was very unlike what I had been a witness to in 1992, when the All Blacks played the Springboks at Ellis Park in 1992. That match signaled the Springboks return to international rugby. The All Blacks won 27-24, but it was never a three-point game. The men in black were always comfortably 10 points in charge and the Boks’ final seven points came in injury time and with the last play of the match.

In the build-up to the 1992 Test, there was so much support among South Africans for the All Blacks. They were the demi-gods of world rugby and the closest most South Africans had got to the All Blacks was watching them on television.

The All Blacks were revered in South Africa, but in this particular June week in 1995 there was a shift towards green and gold.

Something big was happening, said the Springboks manager Morne du Plessis. He spoke of a greater influence and a greater force. reclaiming a World Cup they had won in 1987 and lost in 1991.

The All Blacks captain Sean Fitzpatrick, in the latter part of the week, told us at a media conference: “I have won a World Cup and I have lost a World Cup. I know which feeling is better and I know which feeling I want on Saturday evening.”

The All Blacks management had shielded Lomu from the media. It didn’t stop the media from turning every All Blacks press conference into a Jonah spectacle. It visibly irritated some of the players and at the last player press conference of the week, the first few questions asked of All Blacks wing Jeff Wilson were about Lomu.

Wilson challenged the media to ask him questions about Jeff Wilson and the final. If they couldn’t then they shouldn’t direct a question his way. There was tension at that press conference, which preceded a visit to Loftus for a match that had no tension.

The same French team that had lost 31-10 to England at Twickenham on February 4th, had beaten the same England side 19-9 at Loftus on dreary early Thursday evening on June 22nd.

The teams were largely the same, but the occasion was different because playing for third place was not an occasion any of the players felt warranted an effort or a celebration.

The big dance, as the players call it, is the final.

And despite the confidence among South Africans, the rest of the world had already anointed the All Blacks as champions. Australian sports columnist and former Wallabies lock Peter FitzSimons had a distaste for South Africa and the Springboks. He declared a 30-point win for the All Blacks and a victory for pedigree over patriotism.

This was a man who clearly did not understand the South African sporting psyche.