{"id":575978,"date":"2026-08-21T15:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/575978\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T15:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:16:10","slug":"joel-stransky-the-5-words-legendary-springboks-coach-uttered-that-exploded-all-blacks-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/575978\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel Stransky: The 5 words legendary Springboks coach uttered that exploded All Blacks’ myth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joel Stransky sat in a room in a Johannesburg hotel watching Jonah Lomu tear England<\/a> limb from limb and wondered to himself: \u201cHow on earth are we going to beat these boys?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Springbok fly-half was still drying out a day after helping the host nation reach the 1995 World Cup final on one of the wettest days Durban, or anywhere else for that matter, had known.<\/p>\n

On the screen in front of him Cape Town basked in sunshine as Lomu rampaged round, through and over shell-shocked white shirts with the most devastating individual performance the sport had seen.<\/p>\n

How to beat the All Blacks<\/p>\n

What happened next changed the course of rugby history. A single sentence, spoken by Boks coach Kitch Christie \u2013 five words, muttered almost under his breath \u2013 with momentous consequences.<\/p>\n

Not only did it lay the foundation for South Africa to win their first World Cup, six days later, it created a self-belief which, 31 years on, the Springboks<\/a> bring with them into this Greatest Rivalry series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a great New Zealand<\/a> side,\u201d recalls Stransky, who would emerge as South Africa\u2019s hero. \u201cThe complete package. Good scrum, good second rows, unbelievable centres in Frank Bunce and Walter Little.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrew Mehrtens was kicking everything, Zinzan Brooke dropping goals from all over the show. And then there was Jonah on the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christie\u2019s Boks had edged past France, 19-15, in circumstances as controversial as the conditions were biblical.<\/p>\n

Kings Park was nigh on unplayable and kick-off was delayed 90 minutes. Had the game been postponed, France would have advanced by virtue of a better disciplinary record.<\/p>\n

It went ahead and somehow the Boks held on, but were miles off the level the All Blacks would produce at Newlands.<\/p>\n

So it was that Stransky found himself in front of that TV in the Sandton Sun the following afternoon, having flown back up to altitude straight after the game.<\/p>\n

Sir Steve Hansen: Springboks have embraced an \u2018us against the world mentality\u2019 and it makes them \u2018dangerous\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Exploding the myth<\/p>\n

His Pretoria and Joburg-based team mates were allowed home for the remainder of the weekend. Those left sat with coach Christie.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Zealand destroyed England that day,\u201d Stransky remembers. \u201cNo other way of putting it. And I can tell you, at that moment, we didn\u2019t have a mental picture of how to beat them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game ended and Kitch got up from his seat. He walked over to the old VHS recorder under the TV, pressed rewind and then sat back down and we watched it again. And again.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, he stood up, turned to the few of us that were there and calmly uttered those words: \u2018Okay, we can beat them.\u2019 He then walked out of the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stransky pauses, almost for dramatic effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believed in Kitch,\u201d he continues. \u201cWhat he said was gold. He knew to beat that New Zealand team we had first to believe we could. We had to win the mind game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHim saying that we could sort of flicked a switch. We built from there through the week, a Plan A and a Plan B. If things went wrong, how we would respond. When Jonah got the ball, what we would do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had mini plans, big plans, other plans. It created a deep down subconscious belief that we could and would win. That we, too, were a good side.<\/p>\n

All Blacks team v Springboks: Five takeaways as Dave Rennie welcomes back \u2018cold trio\u2019 and fires up \u2018battle-hardened debate\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we didn\u2019t have the long history of the All Blacks, because we\u2019d come out of isolation. Maybe we were a less experienced side.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe on paper we weren\u2019t as good as them, but we sure had heart and commitment and, of course, on the day, we were touched by the Madiba magic. That always helps.\u201d<\/p>\n

The year after Stransky\u2019s extra-time drop goal brought President Mandela down from the stands, in Springbok jersey and cap, to present the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, New Zealand avenged the loss.<\/p>\n

They won a series on South African soil for the first time. But Stransky contends that the 1995 triumph was \u201cmaybe the start of the explosion of the myth that the All Blacks were unbeatable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure there was ever a point where South Africans truly thought the All Blacks were not beatable,\u201d he says. \u201cSouth Africans are resilient. We\u2019ve always come through tough environments. But that day in \u201995 maybe set a tone going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springboks v All Blacks prediction: Dave Rennie\u2019s men to \u2018buck the trend\u2019 and take Greatest Rivalry opener at Ellis Park<\/a><\/p>\n

Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry<\/p>\n

Since then the Boks have claimed three more World Cups. They have won both finals played against New Zealand and last year handed the men in black their heaviest ever home defeat.<\/p>\n

Yet the rivalry endures and the anticipation for the next four weekends reached fever pitch on Thursday when both coaches rolled the dice; Erasmus picking the rusty Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu to start at 10, Dave Rennie going with all three of his injury doubts, Cam Roigard, Will Jordan and Damian McKenzie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to explain the South Africa-New Zealand rivalry to someone the other day,\u201d Stransky adds. \u201cAnd the best way I could think of was to tell the story of when I spoke at the Paarl Gimnasium School annual dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two massive schools in Paarl: Paarl Gim and Paarl Boys. They\u2019re the greatest rivals in the whole country.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the dinner, the first thing Paarl Gim did was toast their school. For what it is, how great it is, the people, the men that made them.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.
\u201cThe second toast was to Paarl Boys. Their arch rival, their greatest enemy. Because Paarl boys have helped define who they are.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think that\u2019s like our relationship with the All Blacks. We need them to be strong. They were so good for so long, and we chased them and aspired to be as good as them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want this to be that great a series that it could go either way before, hopefully, at the end we come out on top.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to win a series that is noteworthy because it was tough and hard, fought fair and honest, with everything our shared history represents.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0All Blacks team: Dave Rennie explains backing \u2018big ticker\u2019 rookie and singles out why \u2018big engine\u2019 forward had to be selected versus Springboks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joel Stransky sat in a room in a Johannesburg hotel watching Jonah Lomu tear England limb from limb…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[337,1463,1464,111,43,139,69,6327,1838,213],"class_list":["post-575978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-features","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575978","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=575978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}