New Zealand Herald recently published their list of 20 All Black greats. See here.
These are the players that made All Black rugby what it is or who changed the direction or perception on how the game should be played in New Zealand. Who are the Springbok legends that formed SA rugby; who made Springbok rugby what it is?
Here is my list of 20 Springbok greats/legends. I do think they stack up well against the All Black greats.
- Danie Craven – Mr South African rugby
- Os du Randt – Two RWC gold medals; Coincidence?
- Mof Myburg – When all else fails bring Mof into the pack
- Frik du Preez – Our drop, place and score man or just say Chris Laidlaw
- Mannetjies Roux – genius is as genius does
- Naas Botha – Look at the scoreboard
- Danie Gerber – Maestro of the midfield
- Bennie Osler – Created a Springbok playing style
- Victor Matfield – 110 test caps later and never lost a line-out contest
- Jan Ellis – Fire and brimstone stuff
- Joost van der Westhuizen – try scoring machine
- Joggie Jansen – who will ever forget that tackle that turned a series
- Gysie Pienaar – Sparked a series to life; just say 1980 Lions
- Ray Mordt – Jonu who?
- Japie Krige – Just find me a wing who could stay with him
- HO de Villiers – for changing the way we saw fullback play
- Rob Louw –Mouth-watering midfield linking wing forward
- Hennie Muller – for redefining No8 play
- John Gainsford – A man’s man
- Henry Honiball – for showing that the Springboks can win matches without a flyhalf sitting in the pocket
As I went along constructing this list I realised that ‘greats’ and ‘legends’ are probably not the exact same thing.
Specifically the criteria to qualify for a ‘great’ would probably be slightly different from those for a ‘legend’. Some-one who made a significant impact in one test or a series like Joggie Jansen could be seen as a legend but not necessarily as a great. On the other hand some-one like André Venter who never had a real outstanding legendary moment but who was a stalwart over decades making outstanding contributions to team effort/accomplishments could qualify as a ‘great’ but probably not a ‘legend’.
The New Zealand Herald’s criteria were players who were world-beaters and who dominated their eras. From that perspective players like Daan Retief, Bobby Skinstad, André Venter, André Joubert, Micheal and Carel du Plessis, Louis Moolman, Piet Greyling and maybe Morné du Plessis could probably also be on a list like this.
With only 20 spots looking at players who I would class as legends; who are remembered for their impact on Springbok rugby and world rugby this would be my list.
Was real pissed off when the NZ Herald ran this poll last year, because they made the selection criteria from 1956 onwards. Sent a sharp email (but got no response) to their fool of a rugby writer Wynne Gray, pointing out that the All Blacks were around along time before 1956!
Probably my Ponsonby club bias, but that date meant even the great post-World War II fullback Bob Scott wasn’t available to be picked.
Ridiculous – with all due respect to the effect that South Africans of varying ages may be able to recall of the effect of Don Clarke in 1960, BG Williams in 1970, or Jonah Lomu in 1995, but Bob Scott was the most complete NZ rugby-player to ever display his wares in South Africa (1949).
Glad to see you haven’t made the same mistake, McLook, with old-time greats like Benny Osler, and Danie Craven.
You rate Joggie Jansen that highly? I know it was a great tackle, and a great series he had in 1970, but not much else after that. Fair enough, though.
Joggie Jansen is the one on the list that I pondered about most.
I would not class him as a Springbok great and therefore almost took him of the list.
However he has legendary status in SA due to that 1970 series and in particular due to the effect that one tackle had on the 1970 series.
Not a Springbok great but definetely a legend in the sense of being famous in NZ and SA.
Oh, yes – and I see you’ve got Japie Krige of the 1906-07 Springboks. Fair enough. Billy Wallace of the 1905-06 “Original” All Blacks would make our top 20 on any normal criteria.
Not sure on Os du Randt and Mof Myburgh. As “legends” – ok. They are “typical” props as South Africans perceive them. However, the time Os went off because he was “gartvol” against the All Blacks at Newlands in 1996 sticks in Kiwis’ memories.
Also Mof seems to have been a champion when playing with his mate, Frik du Preez on the hard grounds of Pretoria. But wasn’t even good enough to make the 1965 tour to Australia/NZ, and went awol on the 1969-70 demo tour to the UK.
Very hard to compare players across eras, especially a highly technical position like prop (have a look some time at black and white coverage from the 1960s and 1970s at how fast, loose, and high scrums used to set and bind – you think you are watching rugby league scrums!)…
Nevertheless, if you judge by how dominant and/or innovative a player was in his position in his era, playing under the nutrition/fitness/amateur-or-professional framework that applied at the time, I’d go for “Boy” Louw, Springbok of 1928-38.
The Springboks of the 1930s dominated rugby in both setting an innovative pattern of play, and in on-field results, in the same way only the All Blacks of the 1960s, or the British Lions of the early to mid-1970s can match.
Pivotal to the 1930s success was the importance the Springboks brought to scrummaging. Prior to that, scrums were, as with rugby league, just a means of restarting play. South Africa, with the development of the 3-4-1 scrum formation (which got locked in at test level in about 1928) had the weapon that gave them the edge. Did the grand slam in 1931-32, were the only team before 1996 to win a SA vs NZ test series away from home in 1937 (and are the only Springbok team to ever do it). Took NZ about 25 years to catch up.
Key to that success was “Boy” Louw, who was the corner-stone of the scrum for an entire decade.
Mof Myburg is probably the best known pre-professional era Springbok prop but you are correct with regard to quite few points you about Mof.
He did went absent in 1969/70 in the UK and was left out a couple of times due to his inability to do anything else but scrum and support in the line-out.
Boy Louw was clearly a more mobile prop and in terms of being a great could easily be picked above Mof.
In terms of legendary status I heard about Mof way before I heard about Boy Louw growing up in SA. Mof still played rugby when I was born and retired just about the time my interest in rugby developed and that probably contrubted to him being still being talked about when I was young.
Os from a SA perspective was a legend. In 1996 when he got ‘gatvol’ I reckon it was with the coaching set-up as backdrop to what was happening on the field.
The early springboks namely the team of Paul Roos in 1906, Billy Millars team of 1928 and Bennie Oslers team in 1931/32 were world beaters in the UK.
Also the 1937 team to New Zealand and the 1951/52 team to the UK were without a doubt two of the best Springbok teams ever.
The entire list of 20 players could come from those era’s but most of those players are virtually unknown to modern rugby fans.
My solution was to go for the players that is most known in the ‘volksmond’ (most talked about around barbeque fires).
Louis Babrow, Phil Nel, Gerry Brand, Phil Mostert, Boy Louw, Hansie Brewis, Ryk van Schoor, Daan Retief, Jaap Bekker, Piet Visagie, Johan Claassen all probably belong on the list.
Thys Lourens – the only MAN that stopped Billy Bush…
Most of these guys I have only heard stories of! Matfield, Os and Joost are the only ones I watched growing up
Good list – I might to find space for Philip Nel, Hansie Brewis and Carel DuP
Leaving out John Smit is almost criminal
Good choices, czardas.
Nel seems to have been a reasonably good sort of player, although old (first picked at age 28, captained the ’37 Boks at 37), and was actually foolishly dropped by the selection committe for the first test of the 1937 series – the only game in NZ that the Boks lost.
Which indicates he was a brilliant captain.
Hansie Brewis scored a remarkable try in the 2nd test against the 1949 All Blacks, was a great drop goal exponent. had a brilliant partnership with his Blue Bulls no. 9, Fonnie du Toit, and was a star player for the highly successful and entertaining 1951-52 touring team to the UK. Never played in a losing test match for South Africa in about 10 games, I think.
Carel du Plessis – ahhh, like Barry Richards, Mike Proctor, and Clive Rice – the boycott years robbed the world of something special. Was a baby out here in 1981, so didn’t get to play in the big games. From memory he was played at centre on that tour, and with Gerber, older brother Willie, and Colin Beck, as well as Errol Tobias getting games at 12 and 13, it was hard to make a mark. Plus Germishuys and Mordt were cleqar choices on the wing for the big games. But when he found his true position, he was almost as good a wing as your great uncle Prince Alexander Obolensky!
Yep.
It is probably only sad old rugby tragics like you, me , and czardas who play trivial pursuit with the names of the past. My own club has a very great All Black as our director of rugby, but most young guys out of school who come along to the club have no idea of his playing record. Which is fair enough. Was before their time.
They are probably too old to even remember Fitzpatrick and Cullen. When I was a kid it was BG Williams, Sid Going, Grant Batty, and Ian Kirkpatrick.
True story that illustrates the generation gap: When Jonah Lomu was first picked as a green South Auckland 19 year old in the All Blacks in 1994, Colin Meads was the manager. Guys in the team were talking about, “Pinetree said we should…Pinetree wants us to assemble for the bus at 10:30…Pinetree says we have to wear our suit and tie to the aftermatch function, etc”.
Jonah asks, “Who’s Pinetree”! The greatest All Black of all time, and Jonah’s never heard of him.
Good selection Mclook. I enjoyed reading the comments of Kimbo and your reply as well. My legends or greats will include Gerald Bosch and maybe Fourie du Preez. For the prop toppic. Guthro Steenkamp, what a worker. Maybe in future the Beast. But still again those are modern era players and the memories of the older players fades away. For Kimbo my NZ great players are Grant Fox and Ian Jones. Great players to watch on the field.
Greetings
Have to differ with you on that one. Thanks for the one star. I might return the favour in future, hahaha.
If you were going to choose the All Black folk-heroes you would include the following: -
Mark “Cowboy” Shaw – sat Eben Jansen on his arse with a good right hook in the first test of 1981. One of many notches on the Cowboy’s gun-belt!
Wayne “Buck” Shelford – famous for having his nut sack rucked open against the Frogs at Nantes in 1986, and he still played on. Apparently one of his testicles popped out after he took his shorts off after the game, and they had to obviously stitch it back up. Funniest interview of all time was a few years later when an Aussie TV host was stutterring searching for a come-back after Buck, dead-pan, told him on prime-time TV, “I had a lacerated scrotum!”
Colin Meads – played with a broken arm in South Africa, broke his back in a car accident in late 1971, and was back playing rugby the next season. Used to do his training runs with a sheep under each arm.
Brian “Jas” Muller – used to trim his hedge with a lawn mower.
Keith Murdoch – used to tow cars with the tow rope around his arm, because he had no tow-bar on his car. Scrummed against Mof Myburgh in the 4th test of 1970, then had to be rushed to hospital the next day to remove his appendix. Now lives in the outback of Australia where he has resided on and off for about 40 years, ever since he was infamously sent home by a weak manager on the 1972-73 tour to the UK.
Yes, see my remark as 6:50.
True but he played second fiddle to Piet Greyling and Jan Ellis. Hard to call him a Springbok great as a consequence.
I only saw from 1970 onwards in real life but have heaps of video matrial of the early boks so that helped a bit.
The three you mention was surely in a class of their own.
Classic stuff Kimbo. Real folk-hero stuff. Story about Mof Myburg. Towards the end of his career he came up against the ambitious young prop earmarked to become a Springboks. First scrum the rookie put his back into it but Mof hold it solid as a rock. By the third scrum the rookie all puffed out Mof stretched out with one hand -while holding the youngster dead still in the scrum- picked a blade of grass and just before putting it into his mouth said: “I am so glad you also want to take it easy today’.
…and Kevin Skinner. Not joking.
About 15 years ago my grand mother died, and our family all got together for the funeral in Dunedin, including a long-estranged uncle we managed to track down.
Anyway, it is hard getting to know this guy who is family, but a stranger, but inevitable, as happens in NZ, we get talking rugby, and my grand-father’s (who died a couple of years before I was born) favourite Crisbrook heroes.
They included the great left-hand Otago batsman Bert Sutcliffe in summer (famous for his batting on the Boxing Day at Ellis Park in 1953 after news of teh Tangiwai train disaster came through to the team – including the death of the fiancee of one of the Kiwi players on that tour, Bob Blair), and Ron Elvidge and Kevin Skinner in winter.
My uncles eyes lit up, and, without prompting he recited the story every Kiwi knows – “that crafty Danie Craven had his dirty props Bekker and Koch misbehaving and getting up to mischief. They broke Mark Irwin’s ribs in the first test, then buckled young Frank McAtamney in the 2nd.
So they called Skinner out of retirement for ther third test, and he settled things down on one side of the scrum in the first half, then switched sides in the second, and taught Bekker a lesson as well!”.
Like the Joggie Jansen tackle, and the Frik du Preez hit on Chris Laidlaw in the same test in 1970 – Kevin Skinner is folklore. Sorry – I don’t make the rules – I just report them!
Had a guy from South Africa at our club a few years ago (who went back to play for the Lions) who was mentored a bit by Mof. Shared with him the two stories I know about Mof (and forgive me if I’ve told them before:
Willie John McBride was picked to play a test for the 1962 Lions at Newlands. The two teams were lined up facing each other, waiting to shake hands with the local dignatary. McBride is feeling nervous, and looks across, and sees he is facing Mof Myburgh.
Trying to relieve the tension, McBride sees that the turf is sprase, and not that lush, and says, “Hey, Mof – there’s not much grass here”. No response.
Second time: “Hey, Mof, there’s not much grass here”. No response.
Third time, “I said to you, Mof, there’s not much grass here”.
Myburge lifts his head, gives a withering gaze, and replies, “I didn’t come here to f*&%ing graze!”.
Second story – on the 1969-70 Springbok tour a British rugby writer asked Myburgh what his training schedule was:
“Let’s see. On Monday, and Wednesday, and Frrriday, I rrrun. On Tuesday and Thurrrsday, I scrrrum. On Saturrrday, I play”.
- “oh, ok. What about on Sunday?”
“Ach, On Sunday, I prray, man, I prrray!”
Yes if Skinner was a South African he would have been the SA rugby player of century.
Gerald Bosch – and Grant Fox. Interesting choices. You obviously like your rugby players clever and tactical. Gerald certainly broke the hearts of our 1976 team.
And Ian Jones. Andy Haden used to wage a one-man campaign criticising his supposed lack of lineout dominance for years.
Ironically, Jones played his best lineout game in the 1995 RWC final. SA’s risk of playing Mark Andrews out of position at No. 8 that day, in order to supposedly get lineout dominance back-fired badly because Jones had the game of his life, and took everything that came his way.
But as we all know, South Africa may have lost the lineout battle that day, but they won the war! I’m not one of those Kiwis who says we were robbed in that game.
You guys won fair and square because even though your plan to secure possesion back-fired, and you played a lock out of position, yet you still managed to make every tackle count.
Thanks Kimbo. You are on the money with clever and tactical. Thanks for so ever great input and reply. Nicely said. I totaly agree, but can not describe it so well that you did now. The 1995 All Black team was one of the best teams ever. It took guts, tactics, perseverance and lots of luck to win a team of that stature in a cup final.
McLook I cannot compete with your knowledge of the game. I’m glad you mentioned Andre Venter. What a great player. Rob Louw was a master and true legend. Whenever you want to find the ball on the field, just look where Rob Louw is. He was brilliant. He was certainly one player that would give every loose forward a run for their money in present days. One thing for certain is that South Africa was always blessed with great loose forwards. It is a pity that we did not see more of Tiaan Strauss in a Springbok jersey. Rumors have it that he and Francois Pienaar did not see eye to eye.
Yes the Tiaan/Francois Pienaar rivalry I’ve heard about as well.
Rugby is like religion; everyone things he is an expert which makes it dangerous ground to tread upon.
People will differ and this list is what a constructed early this morning. I can put up another list of 20 which was arguably just as influencial and regarded by the SA rugby public.
Age does influence our opinions because we’ve seen different players when we were young and full of passion for the game. My big hero’s played in the 1980′s. In the mid 90′s I was busy with my career and less involved with rugby.
We share opinions here and we appreciate that people will see thing differently and that’s all part of the fun. Thanks for your remarks.
I was not a big Bosch fan as a child but he was certainly a match winner. Never reach the same height on test level than Naas Botha but he had his supporters.
Thanks McLook. There will always be a debate about Naas. If I can name a few Flyhalves in that era like De Wet Ras, Bosch, Robbie Blair. All of them good kickers and tactical players. I like Bosch, he was my inspiration as a Lions (Transvaal) supporter. But Naas truly was in a different league, he truly dominated that era. I did not forget Tobias, he had flair. but still Naas was Baas. It was a love/ hate affair with the public. He was areal genius of the game. Mclook what is your oppinion on Ras, Blair and Tobias?
I really liked Errol Tobias. I reckon he would have trived in the modern game. Even more than Naas maybe. But Naas would still have made an impact he was a genuis.
Blair I liked him because I was a WP supporter but in fairness not in the same class as Naas or Bosch when it comes to running a game.
Gavin Cowley was someone I would have loved to see on test level. Probably the best of that Blair, De Wet Ras, Bosch era.
De Wet had a big boot that about it. Not real tactical genuis; no real match winner even with his big boot because he was not accurate enough.
I saw Pieter Kirsten once and it was a pity he stopped playing rugby. Like Cowley a real class act.
Did not had the opportunity to see peter Kirsten playing rugby. He was for me a great cricketer and unfortunately due to the isolation the world only saw him play on the international stage when he was at the end of his cricket days. Still he was great!
The incredible thing about this list is that three players – Botha, Gerber and Mordt – were in the same back line at the same time: 1987 – which was the year that the All Blacks won the inaugural World Cup. Had South Africa played, the Kiwis wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Billy Bush bullied all the guys even Jan Ellis and Piet Greyling, but Thys stopped him.
Look at that Cape Town wing that stopped Jonah Lomu. James Small tough as nails and hard as a rock.
Good observation. Mordt wasn’t around anymore by 1987 (remember Jaco Rynach played against the Cavaliers) but he might have if we were still part of international rugby.
Billy was a real menace in 1976. Piet Greyling didn’t play against him and Elllis made himself very unpopular by firtly declining to capatained a mixed race team against the AB and secondly by punching Andy Leslie in the TVL game.
Thys was a true blue bull legend but was not highly rated by the 1976 All Blacks. He was past his best then as was Jan Ellis.
Jan Ellis (brilliant flank), Dawie de Villiers (Bok Captain, Ambassador), Uli Schmidt (SA version of Sean Fitzpatrick), Andre Joubert (played a WC final with a broken hand), Carel Du Plessis (prince of wings)….
The point being you need a “50 Springbok legends” post.
Yes, I’d forgotten about that. Pity they didn’t bend the Rules for Mordt as they did for Botha – when Danie pulled rank because he realized that to lose Naas would be unacceptable.