John Goliath
GROWING up in the 1980s and 1990s, my rugby hero was Tiaan Strauss. It started off because he was from Upington, that lovely little town on the banks of the Orange River where my mother was born.
During the school holidays in Upington, my cousins would tell me tales of the Western Province captain training in the sand dunes of the Kalahari while carrying a sheep on his shoulders. They would tell me that he would tackle the trees and run in the 35-degree heat without breaking a sweat.
Of course, I believed them. I was just a kid whose imagination was his favourite playground.
So imagine my disappointment when my hero wasn’t included in the 1995 Springbok World Cup squad. I was gutted, especially because I thought I was going to see Strauss up close and personal at the opening match at Newlands. I was chosen to carry Japan’s flag at the opening ceremony, and I would basically be right next to the field when the Boks and the Wallabies kicked off the tournament.
A few weeks later, though, my heartache had been replaced by the joy of the Springboks beating France to make the World Cup semi-finals. But that joy was soon replaced by anxiety after a chap called Jonah Lomu just ran through the England rugby team like they were mannequins in a shop window.
All of us remember the day Jonah bulldozed Mike Catt into the Newlands turf. Whether you were at Newlands on that pleasant winters afternoon or in front of your television set, it was a moment that sent shivers down your spine if you were a Bok supporter.
At the time, as a 13-year-old boy from Paarl, obsessed with checking out the sports pages of every newspaper available, I was reading about the advice the Boks were given by people from all walks of life on how to stop Lomu.
Former rugby players said go low and hard, while a karate master told one newspaper they had to do a wrestling manoeuvre to bring the big man to his knees.
Just over 20 years later, though, yesterday to be exact, I read a piece in which my hero, Tiaan Strauss, gave his opinion on the matter at the time. “How do you stop Jonah Lomu?”
“With a gun!”
My sheep-carrying, tree-tackling hero summed it up perfectly.
On the day of the World Cup final, though, the Springboks didn’t have to wield the steel to bring down Lomu. They showed steely resolve and that South African spirit to get the job done. Although, at the time, I did think that Bok wing James Small was actually carrying a gun after seeing his new haircut. As my sports editor Ian Smit would say, it looked like he just escaped from Pollsmoor prison.
Lomu and the All Blacks may not have won the World Cup in 1995, but the carnage he had left behind in the tournament would elevate him to superstardom and lead rugby into a new era.
He was a superstar who regularly crushed my dreams after waking up at 4am to watch the Springboks play the All Blacks. While it’s true that he never scored a try against the Boks, the amount of five-pointers he created for Jeff Wilson, Christian Cullen and the ever-present Josh Kronfeld left me crying in my bed for hours.
Yesterday morning when I heard the sad news of Lomu’s passing, I shed another tear. But it was not a tear of sadness, it was a tear of appreciation for all the memories he created for fans from all over the world.
While the Springboks suffered regularly at the hands of Lomu, as a rugby fan you have to just sit back and imagine a game without the big man with the No 11 on his back. Imagine if he wasn’t around when the game turned professional.
Lomu revolutionised wing play, because here was a guy who had the weight of a loosehead prop, the height of a lock and the speed of a 100m sprinter. Basically, he was the Frankenstein of the rugby world.
Lomu will always have a special place in all of our hearts because he was like nothing we had ever seen before.
Yesterday, rugby lost a pioneer. A Vasco da Gama. A guy who showed us that the earth is actually round by flattening opponents. Thanks for all the memories, Jonah. You were one of a kind. The only firearms we need to take out now are for a 21-gun salute.