Balie Swart recalls Kobus Wiese’s words ahead of France semi-final

Thirty years ago this week, the Springboks beat France in a World Cup semi-final amid unbearable tension. One of the heroes of the day was Balie Swart, who anchored the scrum despite having sustained damaged ribs.

Swart recalls the drama in drenched Durban. This is some of the tighthead prop’s story of that epic 1995 win, in his words.

“On the morning of the game, we looked out of the window of our beachfront hotel, and there was this huge barrier of dark clouds over the Indian Ocean. We looked at each other with big eyes, and I said: ‘What the hell is going on here? That is not normal rain out there.’

“When we got to the stadium … the field was a lake and none of us wanted to get our shoes and pants wet!

“At last, we splashed out onto the field, and immediately we were boosted by the sea of colour in the stands. It was an unforgettable sight ... so many South African flags swirling in the rain and the crowd roaring louder than the thunder.

“It was a heck of a tough game to be a forward because most of the time we were chasing kicks – it was always going to be that kind of a game because trying to handle the ball would have been madness. We were exhausted pretty quickly. That was also because the ground was so heavy, and we were sodden.

“Early in the second half, I was trapped in a ruck and (Abdelatif) Benazzi (the formidable French No.8) came crashing in with his knees and I felt my ribs go. Later, I found out two of them had been cracked.

“I played on, but towards the end of the game, the pain was excruciating. When we got to those famous last scrums in that corner near our try-line, with the French pushing for the win (the Boks led 19-15), I said to myself: ‘This is stupid ... If I can’t give 100 percent, I must be replaced by someone who can.’

“I stayed on for the first scrum (there would be four of them), it collapsed, and when I got up in agony, I told Kobus I was finished, I was in too much pain. Well, he looked at me with an expression of disgust and said: ‘You are going nowhere, softy.’

“Then he looked at me and said in a very serious tone: ‘Listen carefully: you can go up, you can go down, you can go left or right, but you will NOT go back!’

"How did we hold them off to win? There was vasbyt, adrenaline ... stupidity! But probably what carried the day was the crowd support in that corner – the screaming of “Bokke! Bokke!”I don’t think people understand how much that lifts a player, how important it is.

"After the final whistle, we three front-row guys came together (Balie, Chris Rossouw and Os du Randt) in our own little huddle. We stood there for quite a while, crying with relief as steam rose from us.”

Swart ended his story quite presciently. That “something much bigger” came seven days later when Swart and his teammates had to do it all again in the final, albeit on a bone-dry field of the Highveld and the crisp, rarefied air of Ellis Park.

And the rest, as they say, is history.