KEY POINTS:
Richie McCaw will never forget his first test on South African soil.
Nor will David McHugh, the Irish referee officiating in the Tri-Nations test between the Springboks and the All Blacks at Kings Park in Durban on August 10, 2002.
It was also the day that McCaw threw
his first punch in a test match (has he ever punched again?) The recipient was extremely well deserving of McCaw's drastic action but, although he was wearing a Springbok jersey, he certainly was not a member of Rudolf Straeuli's team.
We are talking, of course, of the day one Piet van Zyl, a portly and most pickled fellow from the Afrikaner hinterland, got fed up with a perceived refereeing bias, hurdled a security fence - or did he charge through it? - and tackled McHugh just as a scrum had been set.
For McCaw, it was a touch surreal.
"I just could not believe it. The thing is, in the build-up to the match, I had been briefed about South African crowds. There had been a lot of discussion about the rivalry between the countries and how emotional the fans could get. I had heard that the crowds get pretty involved in the game but, hang on, this was just crazy."
Springbok lock AJ Venter and McCaw combined to free McHugh, but not before his shoulder was dislocated.
"Apart from that incident, the whole day and night was a fantastic occasion," McCaw said this week from his team's hotel on Durban's famous Golden Mile beach front.
"The crowds can be a factor in South Africa if you allow them to be - you cannot allow them to find their voice." He probably still has the roar of Loftus Versfeld ringing in his ears after the Crusaders' Super 14 semifinal defeat there in May.
The All Blacks players who lost a Tri-Nations match in Durban in 1998 know what he is talking about. Taine Randall's team raced into what should have been a match-winning 23-5 lead, thanks mainly to a blockbusting performance by No 8 Isitolo Maka (until Robin Brooke accidentally broke his nose in a lineout collision just before halftime). But after the break, the Boks scored an early try and the 54,000 crowd stirred into life; they went ballistic when substitute Bobby Skinstad scored not long after and, for the final mad quarter of the game, the Boks were propelled towards victory on an inexorable sonic wave.
Players from both teams afterwards said they had never heard anything like it.
Conversely, I was at Loftus in 2003 when the All Blacks cut loose and rattled up 52 points. Talk about a deafening silence ... and one that was broken only by the occasional outbreak of booing as the fans half-heartedly voiced their discontent.
The All Blacks need no reminding of the Ellis Park factor. Over the decades, the All Blacks have probably lost more matches there than anywhere else in the world and the 72,000 maniacs in attendance are not only proud of this fact but roar louder so that the jinx may continue.
Last year, Ben Tune, the highly combative Wallaby winger, described beating the Boks in South Africa as "rugby's greatest challenge".
For the Aussies, it probably is - they have won just one in 14 games in the republic since 1992. The problem with the Aussies is that they hate touring South Africa and have a negative mindset before they get off the plane, whereas the All Blacks recognise a historical kinship, embrace the rugby culture and feed off the buzz.
Tune said this of the approach to Ellis Park on match day: "The bus trip from the hotel to the stadium is the most intimidating experience. For about the last kilometre, the streets are lined with fanatical South Africans who enjoy thumping the bus with their fists while yelling insults at the occupants. When you finally get to the ground, you then run the saliva gauntlet from the bus to the players' entrance. I have played in a Rugby World Cup final and watched live AFL and NRL grand finals as well as a State of Origin at the old Lang Park, and none of those arenas compares with the noise and fervour generated by a packed Ellis Park, Loftus, Kings Park or Newlands when the Springboks are playing."
And now there is a new trend at South African grounds, especially those in Pretoria and Johannesburg - the singing of Afrikaner folk songs, some dating back to the Boer War. This gets the guys in the mood, you see, and when you add the rocket fuel that poses as the infamous local brew called brandy and coke, an unholy din is the result.
For a visiting team, there is just one remedy - score first, then score again. Get into a healthy, early lead. That will be the essence of McCaw's team talk this morning.
