What\u2019s remarkable about South Africa and New Zealand is that if one is not rated top of the world, the other usually is.<\/p>\n
All Blacks captain Sean Fitzpatrick and coach John Hart after the New Zealand side clinched a historic series win in South Africa in 1996. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
It really came to a head in the final of the 1995 World Cup at Ellis Park in Johannesburg. That day it was as if the long, very often controversial, history between the All Blacks and the Boks had culminated in every good way you could think of, from new President Nelson Mandela wearing a Springbok jersey<\/a> when he met the teams, to a vibrant, sellout crowd. <\/p>\n Looking around the ground, it was obvious support for South Africa came from a mix of races that made the phrase \u201crainbow nation\u201d actually come true for one sunny afternoon. And, after the Boks won, 15-12, it was a joyful, peaceful night in Johannesburg, usually one of the scariest cities in the world.<\/p>\n Sports can unite<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of life\u2019s oddities that a country deep in the South Pacific colonised by the British, as we were, would find such common sporting ground with a country on the African continent where a fierce contact game like rugby would draw its most passionate followers from the descendants of Dutch settlers. <\/p>\n Our rugby relationship with South Africa has certainly been seriously tested, but has always recovered. During the shameful apartheid era, when racism was part of the South African constitution, we bowed to South Africa\u2019s wishes. So in 1949, for example, our best M\u0101ori players were left behind when the All Blacks toured. <\/p>\n It took what almost mounted to a civil war here when the Boks toured in 1981 for our administrators to decide enough was enough, and that we would not tour until South African laws about race had changed.<\/p>\n Household names<\/p>\n The rivalry made household names on a generational basis. To aged Kiwis, the name of South Africa\u2019s 1937 captain and 1956 coach Danie Craven was instantly recognisable. Currently there\u2019s almost a cult following here for Boks coach Rassie Erasmus, and given that he\u2019s won the last two World Cups, that seems only fair. <\/p>\n In the process he has the Boks playing the sort of scarily physical rugby most New Zealanders would associate with the men in green and gold. It\u2019s certainly been fully acknowledged by All Blacks coach Dave Rennie that we\u2019ll need not just skill, but also size and brute strength to be successful on this tour.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the sort of sensible thinking that led to the success of the \u201896 tour. Hart took over a team from his coaching predecessor Laurie Mains that was by quite a long way the best side to lose a World Cup final, as Mains\u2019 side did in \u201895.<\/p>\n Hart did the sensible thing. Basically, the line-up he fielded in the \u201896 tests was the \u201895 team with just one major change, the addition at fullback of a world-class runner with the ball in Christian Cullen. Organising an attacking backline had always been Hart\u2019s great strength. <\/p>\n He slipped the leash on the players, most of whom were very familiar with and at ease playing alongside one another. Given the Springboks were the defending world champions, there was almost a sense of disbelief talking with Boks fans after the tests in Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria, when New Zealand victories cemented the series triumph.<\/p>\n An even playing surface<\/p>\nNelson Mandela’s appearance in a Springbok jersey after the 1995 World Cup final became one of sport’s enduring images of reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has dominated recently exchanges with the All Blacks. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n