All Blacks winger Stu Wilson’s passing this week meant a big visual rewind for me of the Springboks 1981 tour to New Zealand.
The memories were golden but so were the observations of why rugby was so different back then. It wasn’t a light bulb moment because I’ve always had this view, but it was a reminder of how emphatically rucking meant the game had pace and flow.
First, Wilson. He and Bernie Fraser were my favourite wing combinations. Springboks right-winger Ray Mordt was my favourite individual winger.
In the infamous flour-bomb Test of 1981, played at Eden Park in Auckland, when the All Blacks won the series-deciding third Test 25-22 through an Allan Hewson penalty nine minutes into stoppage time, Wilson scored a spectacular try and Mordt scored a hattrick of tries.
Remarkable Test
That Test is one that I have watched many times when nostalgia knocks at my door. It was a remarkable Test series and a tour that tortured the consciousness politically, as much as it caressed my love for the game and desire to see the Springboks play the All Blacks.
I embraced the rugby component as a teenager and got up at 3.30am to watch every tour game, including all three Tests. It is a beautiful memory of time spent with my dad as he warmed bowls of soup in the early hours and my brother and I went at each other given he wore black (having been born in New Zealand) and I wore the green of South Africa.
The rugby was so good and fast and focused on attack. It was a different game to today’s, and so much easier on the eye.
There were no super sub bomb squad replacements. Seven players did not enter proceedings on the 50th minute and destroy the tired legs of opponents who had to play longer because they did not have the luxury of such an impact bench.
Blood was the only reason a player left the field, and there had to be plenty of it.
Survival of the fittest
There were no substitutes. The 15 that started mostly finished the game and the natural fatigue of a player in the 70th minute, as opposed to the strength of the same player 10 minutes into the Test, made for compelling theatre.
It was the survival of the fittest and the mentally strongest. Then there was the rucking at the breakdown. The head was always off limits, and if studs connected a head, it was not tolerated. It seldom happened.
Rucking was an art to ensure quick recycled balls, and if a player was slowing the ball down or laying all over the ball, the studs went to work on his back, his arms, his hands, and his legs. The ankles were also a step on the way up to the lower back.
Some flankers wore those rake marks with pride afterwards, as a measure of the pain they were willing to take to ensure the attacking team did not get quick recycled balls but, largely, players sensibly chose not to slow the ball down, and to back their teammates to make the tackles.
When sport was healthy
I am a believer that rucking speeds up the game. Depowering the scrum, having lessor scrums, having goal-line drop outs, and putting time limits on goalkickers does not speed up the game. It messes with the essentials of the game.
The sport was healthy before rucking was outlawed, just like it was healthy before goalline drop outs were introduced and it was at its healthiest before the Television Match Offical was made arbitrator of on-field play.
It was all good when accidental head knocks were an accepted part of a collision and contact sport.
Go and watch the 1981 Tests between the All Blacks and Springboks. Honour the passing of Wilson the Winger, and see for yourself the speed at which the game was played, and how rucking and natural fatigue added to the safety of the game.
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