They may have packed away their rugby boots for good but some of South Africa’s rugby legends have never forgotten their origins in the game and can still remember it like it was yesterday.
As the Vodacom United Rugby Championship celebrates its Origin Round under the theme of “From Grassroots to Greatness”, legendary Springboks John Smit, Schalk Burger Jnr and Akona Ndungane reflected on their earliest memories in the game.
“I was a late started in the game. I started playing when I was 11 years old. Most of the Boertjies started in the embryo,” says Smit.
“But my first rugby memory was at this junior school I was at. Built like I am, I was sent straight to the front row. We had this woes headmaster and he came to watch us practice. He had this cane and every time we bent our backs in the front row he’d hit us on our backs with this cane so we’d straighten our backs. To this day I think it’s why I survived in the scrum for so long, because of that taskmaster who gave us a little whipping on our backs every time we bent them.”
And one of Smit’s funniest rugby memories still belongs to his school days.
“I fell in love with rugby at Pretoria Boys High and I used to love the tours we went on. On one tour to Zimbabwe, we had all been billeted out with families. I’d misjudged my washing, so for our last game I had no underpants. So I thought I’d just tie my rugby shorts really tight and I’d survive one game without underpants. As went down for a scrum, my lock put his hand through and gripped my shorts and the tie snapped. So I was standing there in the scrumming position in all my glory, with all these fans and families looking on. I can honestly say that wasn’t my most successful scrum in my career.”
For Burger, his earliest rugby memory involves his Springbok father Schalk Burger.
“Watching Western Province at the captain’s run at Newlands. They were the dream team in the 80s. My old man put me in the back of the car with my brother and went and watched the captain’s run. They still had the big water can on the side of the field which we helped to fill. We also handed out oranges, which some of the players loved to throw at me. But what stood out for me was that rugby smell. That Deep Heat smell and the smell of Newlands. You had the brewery smell coming across and then also that grass smell. I’ll never forget it.”
And for Ndungane, the awe of watching his father play is still etched into his mind.
“We used to watch our dad at the stadium in Umtata. And for me it was just being there, grabbing a rugby ball and running around trying to beat my brothers and score our own tries. It was just fun. It was that pure enjoyment of not even knowing what it meant to score a try but just that feeling of being out there and running with a ball.”
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