Picking the best of the Boks

The trouble with passing years is that there are just too many Springboks. It gets harder to keep up.

When my brother and I were developing our early obsession with the game, and learning to deal with such esoteric matters as the offside rule and the forward pass, we got to know virtually every Springbok who had ever played - without having seen a single test match, or even a provincial game.

When you lived in the rural-rural platteland, the only example of rugby excellence was the dorp span to which an itinerant Post Office worker could ensure immediate selection because he had "once played for Vrystaat". As it turned out, he had once played in the Free State, and probably for another obscure dorp span.

With such role models, what chance did we have of achieving any heights in the game? So we devoted our young lives to studying the game.

We discovered thick books Danie Craven had written and we devoured them. Men like Paul Roos, Japie Krige, Philip Nel, all the Morkels, DO Williams came alive. They were so much part of our lives that we believed we could make a selection call between, say, Benny Osler and Tony Harris as flyhalf in our all-time great Springbok XV.

We would argue long and hard over the best Springbok front row, speaking with authority on the claims of Jan Lotz, Boy Louw and his brother Fanie, compared with Piet du Toit, Chris Koch and Bertus van der Merwe.

The only time we laid eyes on these men was on cigarette cards and the full-colour centrespreads of Huisgenoot magazine.

The magazines were shamelessly begged from farmers we visited because - as die Engelse familie - we did not subscribe to such an illustrious publication that kept us abreast of the images of our heroes. It also brought along the latest episode of Die Skim, a comic series about a man dressed as if he were about to take part in a gay pride march. And he lived in a jungle.

Such concepts, and Doc Craven's theories, we never felt the need to challenge. Just as we never challenge a Springbok selection. The people picking them, we reasoned, know best. So when Doug Hopwood, Dave Stewart, John Gainsford and Lionel Wilson were chosen for the Boks despite coming from a place far away called Western Province (who played in a funny striped jersey) we not only accepted them, but embraced them ever afterwards as among the greatest rugby players who had ever lived.

So you can imagine the shock when only two of them- Hopwood and Gainsford - were included in The Chosen: The 50 Greatest Springboks of All Time (by Andy Colquhoun and Paul Dobson. Published by Don Nelson). As much as I miss him, I am glad my brother is not around today to witness such disservice. The others are not even in the "New Revised Edition".

Childhood obsession aside, I have decided that the Chosen selectors have not done a bad job. Apart from indecision on Carel du Plessis and Bryan Habana, whom they moved to the right wing in order to accommodate both, it's not a bad First L (that's 50 in Roman numerals, if you must know).

Except that Hennie Muller would be our No1 (even though we never saw him play) rather than Danie Gerber, whom we did. No disrespect to the brilliant centre, it's just that the stories of Craven, Chris Greyvenstein et al made such an impression on us as rugby laaities.