Invictus - Carlin [86]
Mandela made some light remarks, raising some laughs, and then Du Plessis called for quiet so that the president could address the team.
Somewhat to their surprise, Mandela started by taking up the same lofty themes he generally did when addressing white people. (His audience was all white that day, as Chester Williams was away nursing an injury.) He reminded them that the ANC had promised that the new government would keep the commander of the army, the national commissioner of police, the Reserve Bank governor, and the minister of finance. He then pointed out that, a year after the elections, his government had remained true to its word. As Afrikaners, they had nothing to fear from the ANC. Nor, Mandela added, breaking into a grin, from their opponents the next day.
“You are playing the World Cup champions, Australia. The team who wins this match will go right through to the end,” he predicted, before returning to a solemn tone. “You now have the opportunity of serving South Africa and uniting our people. From the point of view of merit, you are equal to anything in the world. But we are playing at home and you have got an edge. Just remember, all of us, black and white, are behind you.”
The players cheered and applauded, then Mandela took turns to chat with them one by one. “He asked me why I had dressed so formally to see him,” Du Plessis remembered. “But what was amazing was the chemistry. The players were drawn to him immediately.” Kobus Wiese admitted, “I can’t remember why we laughed, but I remember we were laughing with Mandela the whole time he was there.”
Hennie le Roux, the chunky center three quarter, decided out of the blue to offer Mandela a token of his gratitude for taking the trouble to come and visit them. When the president got to him, he handed him his green Springbok cap and said, “Please take it, Mr. President, it is for you.” Le Roux paused and added, “Thanks a lot for being here. It means a lot to the team.”
Mandela took it, smiled, and said, “Thank you very much. I shall wear it!” He put the cap on right then and there.
François Pienaar put the seal on the mountaintop ceremony with a brief message of farewell to Mandela. Referring to the next day’s game, he declared, “There’s one guy that now we understand we have to play for, and that’s the president.”
The Silvermine encounter redefined the Springboks’ feelings for their president and their country. Describing the scene as Mandela boarded his helicopter and flew off, Du Plessis was almost lost for words. “I looked at the players as they looked up at the helicopter and they were like young boys waving, so full of this . . . excitement. These guys had all seen a million helicopters before but Mandela . . . well, he had won their hearts.”
And he did them some good as a rugby team too. Pienaar had been worried about the tension among his teammates on the day before play began. He would usually try to find a way to break it, with a song maybe or a film, but this time Mandela had done his job for him. A year earlier, Mandela had put Pienaar at his ease in the presidential office. Now he had done the same for the team as a whole. “He relaxed the guys. His interaction with the team was jovial, always smiling, always cracking little jokes. And he always has time for everyone. He’d stop and chat, and put the players at ease. That was very special before the opening match.”
Mandela may have lowered the Springboks’ stress, but he couldn’t banish it entirely. Few people actually died on a rugby field, but no sport—in terms of pain endured and brutality of collision—was closer to war. Rugby players took and gave hits as hard as American football players without any helmets, shoulder pads, or other protective gear. And rugby demanded far more stamina than did American football. Each rugby match was played in two forty-minute halves with only a ten-minute break between them and no timeouts except for injury. But physical fear weighed less heavily on the players than the burden of national expectation. In less than twenty-four hours they would face