![\"Marc](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/marc-ellis-podcast-5UKQWFRCUZDT3PPUT5QX7OZSJM.png\")
<\/p>\nFormer All Blacks star Marc Ellis says South Africa\u2019s 1995 World Cup final victory was the \u201cperfect\u201d result – despite food poisoning claims that still tarnish the tournament to this day.<\/p>\n
Ellis, who replaced a dry-retching and clearly unwell Jeff Wilson in the final, says he wouldn\u2019t change the controversial result because of what it meant for the South African people.<\/p>\n
But he remains in no doubt that the All Blacks\u2019 food was poisoned, with 26 of the 32-man squad unwell on the day of the final in Johannesburg on June 24 1995.<\/p>\n
The Springboks won 15-12. Joel Stransky scored all of South Africa’s points, including the winning drop goal, in a match remembered for Nelson Mandela wearing a Springbok jersey and uniting the country.<\/p>\n
Ellis told the What A Lad podcast that he wouldn\u2019t change the result.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the benefit of hindsight it was the right result, it was perfect – I wouldn\u2019t change if it I could,\u201d he told host James Marshall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we could go back and win the game by a dropkick I\u2019d prefer South Africa to win it because it made such a massive difference to the people of South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Marc Ellis on the What a Lad podcast. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n
Ellis recalled that as an 11-year-old he had joined protests involving the 1981 Springbok Tour of New Zealand, denouncing racism with a sign that read: \u201cGod created all men equal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1995 match remains the most controversial Rugby World Cup final, with claims the All Blacks squad was poisoned, allegedly by a waitress named Suzie.<\/p>\n
Ellis said he was the first squad member to feel sick.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all crook. I was the first to go down,\u201d he told the podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I got blamed for poisoning the entire team, I got ostracised to the far end of the hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can speculate on it \u2026 the only people who didn\u2019t get crook went to McDonald\u2019s, so there was something in the food we ate in the team room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suspect fruit<\/p>\n
Ellis suspected the culprit was fruit provided to the team after a training session.<\/p>\n
Asked by Marshall if it was done deliberately, Ellis said: \u201cIt would be a bit of a statistical anomaly that in the five weeks of the tournament only five people got crook with anything, then 48 hours before the final 26 of 32 went down.<\/p>\n
\u201cRead into it as you will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellis said the food poisoning left the All Blacks \u201cdepleted completely\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt certainly took a bit of a shine off, but as I say – great result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellis played 20 matches, including eight Tests, for the All Blacks from 1992-95. He scored 11 tries, including six in one match against Japan at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
He later played league for the Warriors and Kiwis and then went on to co-found the Charlie\u2019s juice brand and appeared on several TV shows including SportsCafe and Game of Two Halves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Blacks star Marc Ellis says South Africa\u2019s 1995 World Cup final victory was the \u201cperfect\u201d result…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[789,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-399042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-all-blacks","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}