In the 60th minute of the Test at the Allianz Stadium in Sydney last Saturday, the quietest man in the Springbok team had had enough of the loudest larrikin in the Wallaby side.
Makazole Mapimpi, the man from the Eastern Cape village of Tsholomnqa pointed at Nic White, the fella from the New South Wales village of Scone and said the words the rest of the rugby world wanted to say. “Hey! Shut up! Shut up!”
Even Ben O’Keeffe, the New Zealand referee, looked a little taken aback and not a little bemused. He stood with his arm up for the penalty against Australia and said to Mapimpi: “Quiet.”
But, Mapimpi wouldn’t be quiet. Neither would the Springboks. They had been too quiet the week before in Adelaide, when another Kiwi ref, Paul Williams, had a wobbly old afternoon, with decisions fudged and brushed over with little sense of consistency nor a feel for the way the match was moving.
They kept quiet after the match when asked about the hit on Mapimpi by Marika Koroibete, who smashed into the Bok wing at around 36km/h with a nod to the Owen Farrell school of using one’s arms in tackles. They also kept quiet when Koroibete hit Duane Vermuelen high, and they just about held it together when White, as John Smit put it so well, killed a little bit of rugby’s soul with the dive that was heard around the world.
In Sydney on Saturday, at the old Sydney Football Stadium, where the Springboks first played and lost 19-12 to the Wallabies in 1993 after isolation was lifted, they had had enough of keeping quiet.
This was, according to the history of matches between the two, just the second time SA had played the Wallabies at this stadium. They had not won a single match there since 1993. Also they had not won in their five Tests at Stadium Australia, the stadium in Homebush that played host to the 2000 Olympics.
In the week building up to the match, Sydney Morning Herald rugby writer Tom Decent, ran an “exclusive” that was exclusive in the strictest sense of the word — the sort of piece no rugby writer with any dignity would run. Writer Darrel Bristow-Bovey had had enough of keeping quiet and told Decent: “Man, you’re an embarrassment.”
“Exclusive: The Springboks have apologised to a Sydney high school after a player was caught urinating at training ahead of the weekend’s match against the Wallabies.”
To recap. One of the Boks took a piss behind a tree during training at Randwick Boys’ High. The headmaster and another adult apparently saw it. The headmaster denied any incident had happened when the Herald called. No students saw the Bok having a slash, but, wrote Decent, it “could have been viewed by people on the street”.
Rassie Erasmus wasn’t going to keep quiet, and replied to Decent on Twitter: “We always worry & listen to [South African] people & totally understand & accept the negative & positive advice & comments! So again [South Africa] thank you for always being there for us! We only accept [South African] pressure!!! Tom I don’t think many [South African] fans will take you serious man.”
Erasmus may have included a sheep emoji in that tweet. Childish, I know, but the Boks were no longer going to be quiet.
In the 71st minute in Sydney, the Bok scrum destroyed the Wallabies again, the ball went left, with Willie le Roux whipping a pass to Mapimpi, who scored despite three Australian defenders on him. The last to hit him, coming in low with those Farrell arms of his, was Koroibete. Mapimpi stood up, put his hand on Koroibete’s beard or chest and made sure he remembered his name. No more Mr Quiet Guy.
It all kicked off, a “mass brawl” as some papers put it. There was shoving and grabbing and shouting. There was Rob Valetini bravely running in to hit Mapimpi with his shoulder and then grabbing him by the jersey until Vermeulen told him that was a bad idea.
There was Eben Etzebeth marching Allan Alaalatoa back 10m before four of the Wallaby’s closest mates came to help. It was more bawl than brawl. Then, in the end, as it all calmed down, there was White, chirping away at Le Roux, who had a simple answer for him: “F**k you.”
The time for being quiet ended last week. The Springboks are best when they are angry and roaring. It was the day White finally shut the hell up.
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