Nine years ago today, I sat down at a table at a pizzeria in Les Halles in Paris and ordered a glass of wine and a pizza.
It was a simple tomato and mozzarella pizza, with a little pesto. Plain, simple and with a little flair. It was a pizza not unlike the Springboks had been the night before in the final of the Rugby World Cup.
Plain and simple, with the occasional lapse into flair.
On the table was a pile of newspapers, all the English Sundays, plus three copies of L’Equipe. The headline was simple and plain: Le Roc Springbok, which translates as “Springbok Rock”, or “the rock, Springbok”. I framed that front page. I still have it.
Bryan Habana, holding on to the trophy as he wandered through the depths of the stadium summed up the match perfectly: “It wasn’t pretty, was it?”
He told us how beautiful the trophy was. “But World Cup finals are never great spectacles. It was tough and intense, with a bit of blood and pain along the way, but it was worth it in the end. This little beauty is going home with us.”
The morning after the night before was a strange one. We had had a press conference with Jake White and John Smit, both still a little stunned and bewildered after a final that had been extraordinarily tense.
Mark Cueto still believes his disallowed try should have stood, Danie Rossouw’s desperate tackle had not done enough to force his leg into touch.
It took the TMO, Stuart Dickinson, the Australian who had incurred the wrath of South African fans in the past, five replays, three minutes and two seconds, to answer Alain Rolland’s question: “Can you just confirm, is there any reason I can’t give the try?” I’m not sure there was a solid reason, just a hunch. But it was good enough if you were a South African.
I don’t remember too much from that presser. My notes have long since floated away and the hard-drive with the stories on was nicked. It was mostly South Africans at the Bok hotel that day.
We asked Smit and White to sign things for us. I gave up the T-shirt they wrote on for a charity auction a few years ago, so that is gone, too, but to a better place.
It was the last working day of a wondrous tournament that was the best of the World Cups I have been lucky to report on.
We went home and we wrote and we drank wine and we ate pizza. And we looked at headlines in French newspapers, and we didn’t want it all to end.
Today, nine years ago, we sat in Paris and remembered and laughed and felt the weight of loss at saying goodbye to the best of times. Today, nine years ago, we toasted a World Cup win.
The Star