Invictus - Carlin [104]
“Because I knew that if I did, I’d fall apart. I’d just crumble, right there. I was so emotional,” the Springbok captain said, “that I wanted to cry. Sean Fitzpatrick [the All Black captain] told me later that he looked over and saw a tear roll down my cheek. But that was nothing compared to what I was feeling inside. It was such a proud moment in my life and I stood there and the whole stadium was reverberating. And it was just too much. I tried to find my fiancée, to focus on her, but I couldn’t find her. So I just bit my lip. I bit it so hard I felt the blood rolling down my throat.”
What had brought Pienaar to the emotional brink was Mandela’s visit to the Springboks’ dressing room ten minutes before. Between the jumbo jet flyover and stepping out onto the field in his green jersey, Mandela had asked Louis Luyt to take him down to the bowels of the stadium to say a few words to the players.
Pienaar recalled the scene. “I had just got strapped up and there we all were, in a state of tension like we’d never known, and so much was going through my mind, knowing that this was the biggest thing ever—one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you’ve always wanted. And I was just thinking about all that, but at the same time with so much attention to all the details of the game, and then, suddenly, there he was. I didn’t know he was coming, and even less did I know that he was going to wear the Springbok jersey. He was saying ‘Good luck,’ and he turned around and on his back there was this number 6, and that was me . . .
“You know, the passionate supporters, they’re the ones who wear the jersey of their team. So now here I am seeing him walking into the dressing room, in this moment of all moments, dressed like another passionate fan, but then I see that it is my jersey he is wearing. There are no words to describe the emotions that ran through my body.”
As he had a year earlier at Silvermine, Mandela caught the Springboks by surprise. As Morné du Plessis remembered it, before he entered the room the silence was absolute. “Suddenly the players saw him and everybody was laughing, smiling, clapping. The tension just fell away.” This time Mandela’s speech was shorter, more familiar, and more direct than it had been on the day before the Australia game. “Look here, chaps,” he said. “You are playing the All Blacks. They are one of the most powerful teams in the rugby world but you are even more powerful. And just remember that this entire crowd, both black and white, are behind you, and that I’m behind you.”
Mandela then went around the room, shaking hands and sharing a few words with each player. As he walked out the door, François Pienaar called out, “Sir, I like the jersey you are wearing.”
Mandela realized that his visit might raise the Springboks’ blood pressure past its already dangerous level. But, he said later, his remarks “were calculated to encourage them.”
His calculations were, once again, on the money. Stransky, who as fly half would arguably endure the most stress that day, confirmed that “he got the mood just right. It was so inspirational. I would have thought it was completely impossible to ‘up’ the feelings amongst us before the game, but Madiba did. He ‘upped’ us even further.”
Louis Luyt, who had accompanied Mandela into the dressing room, agreed. “He charged them up with those words saying the whole country was behind them. It was a short speech but, my God, that was going to get these guys to play like hell!”
Three minutes later, as the chants of “Nelson! Nelson!” still washed around the stadium, it was the players’ turn to take the stage. Now it was up to them. Responsibility for the well-being of the country passed into the players’ hands. Nothing else would matter for the next hour and a half. If South Africa lost, there would still be things to salvage. There was honor in having made it to the final. The nation had come together like never before. “One Team,