Thirty years ago this week, the 1995 World Cup entered its last fortnight, with semi-finals between South Africa and France, and New Zealand and England, and the final between the Boks and the All Blacks. The pressure on the Boks to deliver was off the scale, and recapturing the mood of that time is fascinating.
I asked Mark Andrews what he recalled about that tense period for the Rainbow Nation. He said by the end of it, he was completely shattered. On the night of the final, while South Africa partied long and hard, Andrews confined himself to his hotel room with a bottle of champagne, too worn out to move.
Within a week, he had pneumonia and was too ill to participate in the countrywide celebration tour.
The stress of the last fortnight of the World Cup, which had seen him make the seismic shift from his confident role in the second row to unfamiliar No 8, had exhausted him.
Rugby World Cup 1995 | In retrospective
Three decades later, Andrews explained: “So I am 22 years old, still fairly new to Test rugby, and the day before the final against the All Blacks we are on the bus going to Ellis Park for our last practice and the newspaper posters on the lampposts are screaming: ‘Will Andrews cost us the World Cup?’”
The excruciating pressure on Andrews had started the week before, in the semi-final against France. Coach Kitch Christie had had a selection quandary. Hannes Strydom had recovered from an eye socket injury – courtesy of the Battle of Boet Erasmus and Kitch, who wanted to play him with Kobus Wiese in the second row, but Andrews was too good to be dropped. And moving him to No 8 (for Rudolf Straeuli) would also give him an extra lineout option and more weight in the scrum.
The pressure on Andrews was exacerbated by the freakishly heavy downpour that struck Durban on the day of the game. The match was almost called off because of the genuine risk of front row players half-drowning in the deep pools of water in the event of a collapsed scrum.
“Before the France semi-final, I was terrified. That is the truth,” Andrews says. “I’d be playing No 8 for the first time since Under-13 at school, and I was opposite Abdelatif Benazzi, the best No 8 in the world.
“I was so nervous I kept going on walkabouts during that rain delay. I will never forget a discussion I overheard. I had strayed around the corner to the area at Kings Park reserved for the referee, and he (Derek Bevan) was in a heated discussion with the World Rugby chairman, and (Sarfu president) Louis Luyt.
“We knew that if the game didn’t go ahead, we were out of the World Cup because of our inferior disciplinary record. And here I was eavesdropping on Louis laying down the law: ‘Gentlemen, understand me, there is no debate about cancelling this game. It will go ahead even if it is at midnight. Get that into your heads. There will be a riot in this country if this game does not happen.’
“I remember thinking: ‘Jeepers, I am glad he is on our side.’ Louis was an intimidating guy and he steamrolled everyone. Louis’ personality saved us from a World Cup exit.”
Andrews played well and was retained at No 8 for the final, where he acquitted himself admirably. So let’s cut to the final whistle…
“I was overwhelmed when the whistle went. The pressure over that last fortnight had been immense. I had gone into that World Cup believing I was one of the best locks in the world and I wanted to prove myself against the best locks. Had I stayed at lock I would have been in my element. Instead, it was the most stressful period of my career.
“The atmosphere in our change room was weird. We just sat there holding our juice bottles. We could not move a muscle and had nothing to say. We were totally drained. If a stranger had walked in, he would have thought we had lost.
“But I will never forget leaving Ellis Park in the bus with the cup, we must have had 20 police cars and bikes surrounding us on the highway back to Sandton. There was a convoy of cars behind us with fans hanging out windows, waving flags and hooting.
“We were being chased! It was like a movie scene. And when we arrived, there were these armoured cars and police with interlinked arms trying to create space for us to get into the hotel.
“It only sank in then what we had achieved. But emotionally and physically, I was broken. I could not take any more…”
Mike Greenaway is the author of the best-selling books The Fireside Springbok and Bok to Bok.
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