{"id":447707,"date":"2026-01-30T16:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T16:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/447707\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T16:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T16:36:08","slug":"springboks-was-the-ultimate-battle-i-loved-sending-a-few-physical-messages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/447707\/","title":{"rendered":"Springboks was the ultimate battle, I loved sending a few physical messages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Legendary All Black Brad Thorn has revealed that he relished playing the Springboks the most during his illustrious career, calling it the \u201cultimate battle\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The 50-year-old is regarded as one of the greatest to ever play rugby, given that he enjoyed remarkable success in both league and union.<\/p>\n<p>In the 15-man code, Thorn won the Rugby World Cup with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/team\/new-zealand\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Blacks<\/a>, Super Rugby with the Crusaders and Champions Cup with Leinster, while in league he claimed three NRL titles and represented Queensland in the prestigious State of Origin.<\/p>\n<p>Despite all those achievements, Thorn stated that he particularly enjoyed the individual confrontation, highlighting the Origin games and the battles in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/team\/south-africa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Rising to confrontations\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The former lock told DSPN with Martin Devlin: \u201cIf I played the Bulls [for the Crusaders] in rugby, I wanted to be man of the match in that game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs you get battle-hardened and you come into your own, you look forward and rise to those confrontations \u2013 that\u2019s what you look for.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ultimate battle in league was Origin, it\u2019s the best of the best there, and the equivalent [in union] for me was a Test match at Loftus or Ellis Park \u2013 on the highveld going toe-to-toe with the Springboks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou had other teams spend time talking about the haka being an advantage; you would never hear that from the Springboks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/news\/david-campeses-sad-verdict-on-bizarre-all-blacks-crisis-which-is-not-good-for-the-game\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Campese\u2019s \u2018sad\u2019 verdict on \u2018bizarre\u2019 All Blacks crisis which is \u2018not good for the game\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>New Zealand and South Africa are both proud rugby nations who have great respect for each other, something Thorn echoed with his comments on facing the Springboks.<\/p>\n<p>The physical battle<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always had this thought that when a New Zealand child is born, there\u2019s a chip they put in his head which tells you that you want to be an All Black, and when he\u2019s born he looks west towards South Africa,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd when a South African child is born, he gets a chip and wants to be a Springbok, and they look east.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we come together it\u2019s special. When you go to altitude, that dry throat, shorter recovery, but who cares. With the Springboks, we both know that we\u2019re just going to get it on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometime you\u2019ll see with UFC and in the last 10 seconds, they say: \u2018let\u2019s just go, let\u2019s swing\u2019, and that\u2019s the mindset with how I used to feel with the Springboks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why I loved testing myself against them and sending a few physical messages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/news\/rassie-erasmus-honest-admission-on-springboks-depth-with-monster-lock-on-the-radar\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rassie Erasmus\u2019 \u2018honest\u2019 admission on Springboks depth with \u2018monster\u2019 lock on the radar<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary All Black Brad Thorn has revealed that he relished playing the Springboks the most during his illustrious&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,119641,818,1182,1736,44,760,1183,85],"class_list":["post-447707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brad-thorn","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-south-africa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}