The 1995 Rugby World Cup quarterfinal between SA and Western Samoa at Ellis Park on June 10 was quite a fractious affair. SA won 42-14, but reports differ in the telling of the story of the match.
SA newspapers were, along with the majority, full of the return of Chester Williams, the four tries he scored and the brutality of the Samoans. The Independent based in London had a different take, writing that while the Samoans may have been a little feisty, three of the Springboks’ six tries were “dubious”.
There were also veiled accusations of “racism” that were not taken further, with Pat Lam, the captain, saying “no comment” to a question on what Joost van der Westhuizen had allegedly said to him. Francois Pienaar called the accusations “ridiculous”.
The Samoans had an 18-8 penalty count go against them, with Mike Umaga late- tackling Van der Westhuizen and André Joubert. The Independent reported that Scottish referee Jim Fleming made a “number of errors in judgment”, most of them for SA.
Bryan Williams, the team’s technical director, said: “I was disappointed with the referee. This is the third time we’ve had Mr Fleming and he seems to enjoy making whipping boys out of my team.”
Williams would have been in some strife had he said that after a game this year. He might have been up in front of Mike Mika, the judge who sat on the three-man panel that found SA Rugby Union director of rugby Rassie Erasmus guilty of misconduct during the British & Irish Lions series earlier this year.
Mika was the loosehead prop for Western Samoa on that June afternoon at Ellis Park. He’d made his international debut against the Springboks in a warm-up match in April which SA won 60-8. A little research on Mika brings up stories and interviews of a man who has worked and played hard, comfortable with himself and others — a really good bloke.
The judgment he was part of runs to 80 pages. Erasmus does not come out of this as a really good bloke. The use of the video was clumsy and dangerous, a blunt instrument to flip the narrative that Warren Gatland had pushed hard that South Africans were essentially rugby Neanderthals and calling into question the integrity of Marius Jonker, the stand-in TMO.
If Gatland’s barbs worked — and they did, as Jonker made four marginal calls and gave them to the Lions — then so did the Erasmus video.
Gatland had dropped hand grenades, so Erasmus, after attempting to get referee Nic Berry to meet with him, went full nuclear. It kicked off a rugby kerfuffle — SA against World Rugby, English rugby, the Northern Hemisphere and the dark art of understanding rugby refereeing.
South Africans are paranoid, bad losers and just damn ugly. World Rugby and its cheerleaders are the shining lights for the integrity of the sport and the true holders of the flame. Why are South Africans so angry? Why are they backing Erasmus so hard? Because they honestly believe they are not respected.
Read the British papers after the Boks beat Scotland. “Entertaining” Scotland stopped by brutal Boks was one headline. The Boks are portrayed as lumbering, robotic monsters. Their great sin? Being excellent at one of the tenements of rugby — the scrum.
South Africans are angry because they were disrespected by World Rugby and France, led by Bernard Laporte, the Mr Burns of the sport, during the bid process for the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Laporte flashed the cash and it was snatched up with Scotland leading the charge for its £4m share, turning a transparent process opaque.
South Africans were angry when World Rugby’s suits voted against them for the 2011, 2015 and 2019 World Cups. South Africans were angry when none of their players or coaches made the World Rugby awards list despite being the No 1 team in the world and beating the Lions after a year of no Test rugby in 2020.
They are angry that Erasmus, who turned the Boks around and created a truly transformed Springbok team, has been told his “reputation is in tatters”. They are angry because it took four months for his hearing to happen. They are confused and angry that it was announced just 72 hours before the Boks play England. They are angry, and they feel patronised and ignored. But, then, much of the reports from up north will tell you something else.
Reports will differ in the telling of the story of SA rugby.
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