Johannesburg - Since the Springbok’s splendid 16-point defeat of the All Blacks in Mbombela, there has been conjecture over which game constituted the Boks’ biggest ever victory over their Old Foe, but the list of score-lines doing the rounds has missed the jewel in the crown.
Because for scope and majesty, nothing comes close to the day at Eden Park in 1937 when the Springboks thrashed the All Blacks by five tries to nil. To this day, the All Blacks record books confirm this margin of victory is the most resounding defeat they have ever suffered.
The awe-struck Kiwis rated the 1937 Boks higher than any of their own previous All Blacks teams and bestowed on them the title “The greatest ever team to leave New Zealand’s shores”.
Interestingly, this match occurred exactly 50 years prior to the first-ever World Cup final that would be played at the same venue in 1987, when the All Blacks defeated France, and Eden Park that day in 1937 was deemed to be hosting the final of an (unofficial) world championship between the two best teams in the world.
To give an understanding of the frenzied excitement that Springbok tour engendered, some 5 000 fans gathered outside the Metropole Hotel in Cape Town simply to hear the squad being announced after the country’s best players had fought it out in a week of trials.
Thousands more stood at the Durban docks to wish the chosen 29 players bon voyage. One of them was the legendary Paul Roos, the captain of the first team to be called the Springboks, the 1906 side that dazzled Britain.
Roos, who had sailed all the way from Cape Town to give his blessing, stood at the quayside and with his famous “soup strainer” moustache twitching with emotion, he told the Boks: “Let the spirit be the spirit of the Charge of the Light Brigade! Theirs not to question why, Theirs but to do or die!”
And off they sailed on the appropriately named Ulysses for Australia where they played the provincial teams and then two Tests against the Wallabies.
The 29-match tour had the most humble of beginnings – the Boks lost the very first game, against New South Wales, just a few days after disembarking and before they had rediscovered their “land legs” after weeks at sea, but they would recover to win 27 of the next 28 games as they blazed a trail across Australasia.
The only other match they dropped was the first Test against the All Blacks, in Wellington, where they got their selection fatally wrong.
A bit of background... When the Boks had won the Grand Slam in Europe in 1932 by beating England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, they had been criticised for playing boring rugby under their brilliant flyhalf Bennie Osler, who was rugby’s first Naas Botha, and they were again accused of a dull approach when they won a home series against Australia in 1933, the last rugby the Boks played before the 1937 tour.
Osler had retired and the new captain, Philip Nel, decided that the Boks would shed the conservative approach and play entertaining rugby.
And this they did under their dapper new flyhalf Tony Harris, who was also a flamboyant batsman in the SA cricket team. The Boks swept aside the New Zealand provinces playing exhilarating rugby but when they got to the first Test, it had been raining for a week and Athletic Park was a swamp.
The tour selectors lost their nerve and chose a conservative team for the conditions, which saw young Harris excluded and the experienced Danie Craven moved from scrumhalf to flyhalf where he was tasked with playing a kicking game.
The Boks lost 13-7 but for the second Test, in Christchurch, the 21-yearold Harris was given his debut and Craven restored at scrumhalf. Harris’ first 40 minutes were nervous ones, though, and the overly adventurous Boks gifted the All Blacks two intercept tries for a commanding lead at halftime.
The 45 000 Kiwis crammed into Lancaster Park were deliriously convinced the world championship was theirs but Roos’ inspirational words at the Durban docks stirred the Boks into a do-or-die comeback.
They had to combine extreme courage with skill because two of their players were badly concussed and with no substitutes allowed back then, they played on effectively two men down.
One of them was their powerhouse prop, Boy Louw, who suffered a curious reaction to a blow to the head – a fit of the giggles that would not cease. He meandered about the field, giggling and getting in the way until Craven found a use for him.
The All Black lock Doug Dalton had been up to no good in the line-outs and an exasperated Craven ordered Louw to “sort him out”.
Except Louw was not mentally equipped at this point to “discipline” Dalton discreetly and descended on the poor bloke in a flurry of fists and boots, most emphatically sorting him out.
Luckily for Louw, the referee had been following the ball… But this was a no-nonsense era of rugby and the All Blacks exacted revenge, knocking out the wonderfully named Bok flank Ebbo Bastard.
The teams did play some rugby too, and the second half belonged to the Boks, who ran in two fine tries and the game was won and the series levelled.
The Bok celebrations in their change room are the stuff of legend with two players actually injuring themselves. Howard Watt jumped about so joyously that he sprained an ankle while another, Pat Lyster, was so ecstatic that he yelled at the star of the game, Louis Babrow: “Hit me, Louis! Hit me!”
So the stocky Babrow did, and Lyster joined Bastard and Louw in dreamland.
Speaking of Babrow, he was a gifted centre and much needed for the third Test except Babrow was a devout Jew and the day of the match fell on a Jewish holiday, and he reluctantly declared himself unavailable.
He eventually played – and magnificently at that – after some ingenious reasoning by Craven, who pointed out that while it would indeed be a sacred Jewish holiday in New Zealand on that day, the match would be long over by the time it dawned in South Africa, and Babrow was a South African Jew!
Onwards to a heaving Eden Park where the world crown was at stake, but the 55 000 Aucklanders were soon rendered silent. Babrow, playing with the zest of a reprieved man, scored two magnificent tries and then three more came from his fellow backs.
To describe just one… Craven had the longest pass New Zealand had seen – he had invented his famous dive pass – and the All Blacks were wary of the distance he could pass. So the Bok backs had worked out a move to catch them out…
When Craven had the ball at his feet at a ruck, he gestured to Harris to move wider. He did this a few times, and the All Blacks defence shifted out accordingly until there was a huge gap between their 9 and 10.
When Craven did pass, it was short to his blind side wing, Freddie Turner, who had crept into the gap from the touchline. Having sped through, Turner passed to supporting centre Flappie Lochner, who drew the fullback before sending Babrow over in the corner.
The Bok tries were so well-crafted that at the final whistle the crowd rose as one and clapped the South Africans off the field. In terms of the score, the All Blacks were lucky that kicker Gerry Brand had had a wretched day with the boot, missing four conversions and several penalty attempts.
The score was 17-6 but a try was worth only three points at that time. By today’s scoring methods, the score would have been 27-6 and even with the missed kicks, that is by some margin the Boks’ biggest win over the All Blacks, while five tries to zip was simply humiliating.
IOL Sport