June 17, 1995, the day the Springboks stole the final from the French XV by a few centimeters

1995. Third Rugby World Cup in history. For the first and last time, it takes place in Africa, in its southernmost country: South Africa. This edition marks the first for the national team. The Springboks were banned from world rugby during the first two editions of 1987 and 1991, due to the segregationist apartheid regime, abolished in 1991.

Opposite, the Blues team which lined up against the Boks in the semi-final of June 17, 1995 included several of the best French players in history, and had everything to compete for the trophy. Destiny, between the rehabilitation of South Africa, a devastating storm and controversies, decided otherwise.

Under the lawn of Durban, politics

In Durban, a seaside town located 600 kilometers south of Pretoria, the backdrop is a torrential sky but above all a highly political issue: President Nelson Mandela intends to unify a nation where racial inequalities still rage. To do this, he hopes to popularize Springbok rugby, the settlers’ sport par excellence. The team reflects the work that remains to be accomplished: all the players are white with the exception of Chester Williams, established as a symbol of black integration. “For the World Cup, the marketing people sold me as a product of a sign of change.”he would say later in his book, he who was called “Dirty nigger” by his future 95 teammate, James Small, when they played together in the Western Province team.

For the story to be beautiful and to hope for a wave of green and gold peace, the men led by François Pienaar and supported by “Madiba” himself, must lift the trophy. So it doesn’t matter if the pitch is completely wet, this match must take place otherwise the Boks would be disqualified. “HASToday, a match in such conditions would never be played. It was a deluge on the pitch, the ball didn’t even bounce!”, remembers Abdelatif Benazzi at The Team.

For a few more centimeters

Postponed several times, the meeting will begin two hours after the initially scheduled time.in a goldfish bowl”, rewinds Philippe Saint-André, captain of the Blues. If the match was already memorable for the unbearable wait, it will be historic by what has been described as “a sports scam” by Pierre Berbizier, the coach of the French XV.

When the Warriors finally enter the scene, a high-intensity game unfolds. The slips multiply, the game flounders, the repeated forwards exhaust the players with scrums that do not hold and the gusts disrupt the penalties. After a South African try that many will consider invalid, the French hold on to the score and score two tries, all refused by Welsh referee Derek Bevan. Trailing 19 to 15 in the 78th minute, he becomes imperative for the Tricolores to get back on track. The aborted scrums follow one another a few meters from the South African goal when the third row Abdel Benazzi recovers the ball in a dazzling manner and rushes to score the try. The Blues are already jubilant.

Thunderclap that still rumbles today: Derek Bevan considers that the ball is not flattened behind the in-goal and refuses for the third time in the match the try to the XV of France. “It all came down to 15 centimeters. Abdelatif Benazi fell before the line”, declared Philippe Saint-André after the match to AFP. Fifteen centimeters which ruin French hopes. The Blues were ousted from the World Cup two minutes later, to the cheers of the crowd celebrating the Boks. If the author of the French test which could have turned everything upside down assures that he had nevertheless flattened the oval ball, he will remember above all that “en 1995, I lost sportingly but I won humanly.”

Victory over form, shadow over substance

Even François Pienaar admitted that “s‘there had been 40,000 French spectators in the stadium, the test [de Benazzi] would have been granted”. These statements appeared to some as confirmation of an arbitration error. PTo make matters worse, the referee of the match was offered a gold watch by the president of the South African Rugby Federation on the occasion of the banquet at the end of the World Cup, a gesture considered inappropriate by the French teams and New Zealanders, who then left the celebration. Even today, Pierre Berbizier refuses to pronounce the name of the referee.

A second point contrasts the victory of the “Sudafs”: four of the 1995 Springboks are now deceased and two suffer from rare disabling illnesses. The question of a prematurely damaged health due to doping arose. François Pienaar admitted in his autobiography that they injected vitamin B12, known to increase the effects of EPO, a notorious doping agent, “but later they were banned, so we stopped everything.” he assured at Stage 2 in 2015. Even if the Boks have a history with doping, there is no evidence to accuse the generation of 95 of having boosted their performances.

““In any case, South Africa had everything in place to win this World Cup.” will conclude laconically the former opening half Christophe Deylaud in an interview given to The Team in 2020. For good reason, as Nelson Mandela, depicted in the film, had predicted Invictus by Clint Eastwood (2009), the South African victory will pave the way not only to the final, but also to the birth of the myth of the “rainbow” nation, united in difference. Because if in King’s Park in 1995, we only found the mix among the crowd of colorful umbrellas, today, the Boks team is under the captaincy of a black man, Siya Kolisi.