It is very hard for a small country, like South Africa, to win lots of international tournaments or Olympic medals.  Those wins that we do get are really treasured and probably mean more to us than to many other countries.  I remember the feeling in 1995 when we won the Rugby World Cup as well as attending the parades for the Springbok rugby team after the 2007 World Cup win.  Those are truly special times in a country which need to be savoured and enjoyed, because you never know how long you will wait for the next one – in rugby the pattern seems to be every 12 years.

We knew we had a good team going in and that we were one of the best teams in the world this time round, but both New Zealand and England looked formidable.  When England destroyed New Zealand it was no surprise that the bookmakers priced them up at 5/10 meaning that mathematically they had a 75% chance of winning. We took our 25% chance, which if course is not a huge outsider in any “two horse” race, but certainly a surprise - and it was a fantastic win for the team and the country.  To give you a perspective on the odds, Donald Trump always claims that he was a massive outsider when he won the Presidency.  That of course is not true in any race involving just two people or two teams, because its never a huge shock if the 2^nd option wins, but Donald Trump’s odds of winning in 2016 were statistically better than the Springboks’ chance of winning.  Of course, that is not the way we, as South Africans, saw the Springboks’ chances because we know exactly how passionate and strong our teams are.  In fact, we have never lost in a Rugby World Cup, once we have made the final, and on almost all of the occasions we have not been the favourites.