It’s 14 years since rugby’s two heavyweights last collided at FNB Stadium, and Saturday’s return to the famous Calabash arrives loaded with echoes, writes CLINTON VAN DER BERG.
Back on 6 October 2012, the All Blacks closed out an unbeaten inaugural Rugby Championship with a 32-16 win there, in front of nearly 88,000 fans.
This Saturday, that number could climb even higher, with the ground within reach of the modern-era attendance record of 94,713, set at this very stadium in 2010.
Only one player from that 2012 Springbok side is still active today, and the rest of the story, from a captain who wasn’t even capped yet to a script that keeps flipping on itself, makes Saturday feel more like a reckoning than a rematch.
Get anywhere near that 94,713 mark and Saturday sits second only to the fabled 95,000 who crammed into the old Ellis Park for the 1955 Lions series, a figure that can never be broken now that safety regulations have capped that ground at 62,000. Soccer City, by contrast, still has the room to chase history all over again.
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Of the 22 players who took the field for the Boks in 2012, only one is still pulling on the green and gold: Eben Etzebeth. He started that day as a 20-year-old lock in just his eighth Test. Fourteen years on, he walks out at FNB as the most-capped Springbok in history, still anchoring the pack, still taking names.
Even more striking is who wasn’t there. Siya Kolisi, now a two-time World Cup-winning captain, was a 21-year-old uncapped prodigy in 2012, still eight months from his Test debut. On Saturday, he leads the team onto the very field he once only watched from outside.
The rugby itself has a strange echo too. In 2012, the Boks led 16-12 at half-time, riding a stunning Bryan Habana solo try and Johan Goosen’s boot, before the All Blacks blitzed them with 20 unanswered second-half points to seal the win.
These days the script has flipped: it’s New Zealand who tend to sprint out to early leads, only for South Africa’s vaunted bench to power a late comeback. If that pattern holds, expect the drama to arrive in the final quarter rather than the first.
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Fourteen years, one survivor, one stadium record within reach, and a rivalry that keeps rewriting its own script. Inevitably, more dramatic history awaits.
SPRINGBOKS (vs All Blacks at FNB Stadium, 2012) – 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 Francois Hougaard, 13 Jaco Taute, 12 Jean de Villiers (c), 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Johan Goosen, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Willem Alberts, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Andries Bekker, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.
Bench: 16 Tiaan Liebenberg, 17 Coenie Oosthuizen, 18 Flip van der Merwe, 19 Marcell Coetzee, 20 Elton Jantjies, 21 Pat Lambie, 22 Juan de Jongh.
Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images
The post Big Eben lone survivor from last FNB showdown appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
It’s 14 years since rugby’s two heavyweights last collided at FNB Stadium, and Saturday’s return to the famous Calabash arrives loaded with echoes.
The post Big Eben lone survivor from last FNB showdown appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
