Joel Stransky: The five words legendary Springboks coach uttered that exploded the myth that the All Blacks were unbeatable
South Africa's Joel Stransky drops the winning goal against New Zealand in the 1995 Rugby World Cup Final.
Joel Stransky sat in a room in a Johannesburg hotel watching Jonah Lomu tear England limb from limb and wondered to himself: “How on earth are we going to beat these boys?”
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.
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.
How to beat the All Blacks
What happened next changed the course of rugby history. A single sentence, spoken by Boks coach Kitch Christie – five words, muttered almost under his breath – with momentous consequences.
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 bring with them into this Greatest Rivalry series.
“That was a great New Zealand side,” recalls Stransky, who would emerge as South Africa’s hero. “The complete package. Good scrum, good second rows, unbelievable centres in Frank Bunce and Walter Little.
“Andrew Mehrtens was kicking everything, Zinzan Brooke dropping goals from all over the show. And then there was Jonah on the outside.”
Christie’s Boks had edged past France, 19-15, in circumstances as controversial as the conditions were biblical.
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.
It went ahead and somehow the Boks held on, but were miles off the level the All Blacks would produce at Newlands.
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.
Exploding the myth
His Pretoria and Joburg-based team mates were allowed home for the remainder of the weekend. Those left sat with coach Christie.
“New Zealand destroyed England that day,” Stransky remembers. “No other way of putting it. And I can tell you, at that moment, we didn’t have a mental picture of how to beat them.
“The 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.
“Eventually, he stood up, turned to the few of us that were there and calmly uttered those words: ‘Okay, we can beat them.’ He then walked out of the room.”
Stransky pauses, almost for dramatic effect.
“We believed in Kitch,” he continues. “What 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.
“Him 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.
“We 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.
“Maybe we didn’t have the long history of the All Blacks, because we’d come out of isolation. Maybe we were a less experienced side.
“Maybe on paper we weren’t 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.”
The year after Stransky’s 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.
They won a series on South African soil for the first time. But Stransky contends that the 1995 triumph was “maybe the start of the explosion of the myth that the All Blacks were unbeatable.”
“I’m not sure there was ever a point where South Africans truly thought the All Blacks were not beatable,” he says. “South Africans are resilient. We’ve always come through tough environments. But that day in ’95 maybe set a tone going forward.”
Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry
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.
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.
“I tried to explain the South Africa-New Zealand rivalry to someone the other day,” Stransky adds. “And the best way I could think of was to tell the story of when I spoke at the Paarl Gimnasium School annual dinner.
“There are two massive schools in Paarl: Paarl Gim and Paarl Boys. They’re the greatest rivals in the whole country.
“At 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.
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“The second toast was to Paarl Boys. Their arch rival, their greatest enemy. Because Paarl boys have helped define who they are.
“And I think that’s 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.
“We want this to be that great a series that it could go either way before, hopefully, at the end we come out on top.
“We want to win a series that is noteworthy because it was tough and hard, fought fair and honest, with everything our shared history represents.”