Good luck Bokke!!

An SA Rugby View takes us through the Boks’ buildup to the biggest game of their lives.

Let’s start by saying nothing else matters for 80 minutes this Saturday. A team picked from a nation of 48 million, as their best, their most talented, their most revered, will arrive at Stade de France on Saturday. They will have traveled in nervous anticipation. Some will have listened to their iPod. Others would have sat in quiet contemplation. Some might have been moved to say a few words.

They will exit the bus to a relative cacophony of noise – even if the bus arrives at a secluded entry point. The adrenalin will start to rush. Nervous anticipation. It’s like that moment when you’re on the edge of a bungi jump platform and you know that the moment has arrived. There is a point where you just want to get on with it.

They’ll walk to their change room and the various approaches to preparing will begin. They’ll change into their practice kit and begin their warm up procedures.

At this time they’ll be entering the zone. They’ll walk down the tunnel and into the theatre of dreams. Stade de France is huge and the stands are bit further back from the pitch than grounds like Newlands. The stadium will still be largely empty, but even if it was full the players wouldn’t see the faces – just the view in the manner you might see from car. The immediacy of the grass and the air will be closer to their minds. They might be thinking of the occasion. Mindful of the fact that this moment might be the pinnacle of their lives. There will be nervousness. Everyone deals with fear of failure. Their sports psychologist will have worked to ensure that it is not a gnawing fear that will cause paralysis or indecision at a crucial moment of the match.

Having stretched in the changed rooms, they’ll be getting the muscles warm now. More stretching with team-mates will be followed with some warm up runs and some practice kicks. They’ll be seeking to get that rhythm going now. What golfers call muscle memory. You can’t think anymore. You have practiced and analyzed and now it is about doing it. The stadium will begin to fill and the players will return to the change-rooms.

Changing into the match jersey will be a special moment. It will be embroidered with “World Cup Final 2007 – South Africa versus England.” It will be something the players will show their grandchildren one day. Right now it will make the dream very real. Nervous energy will begin to give rise to passionate talk by the coach and captain. Senior players might exhort the players to go out there and play like it is the only match that will matter for the rest of their lives. They will remind the team that there are little boys and girls and fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers waiting in front of their televisions and radios right now. There are people coming in from working in the fields of the Northern Cape. Miners coming home or going to the pub. People gathering in front of TV shop windows. They will remind them that this is not just a game. They will remind them that in 1995 the win united a nation. People black and white young and old celebrated in the streets as they shouted “We are the best in the world!”

The coach will endeavor to put the players into the first gear. Remind them that there is nothing they have not thought of or not prepared for. That this is their destiny as surely as the win is. That when the whistle blows they will know what to do. That the preparation started four years ago and their bodies and minds have never  been more ready for anything.

In the huddle, players may or may not realize that this will be the last time they will be in this family. That once the final whistle blows and the celebrations and tears are over, men they regard as brothers will move on. This will be the last time they run out with the overwhelming goal in mind: win the 2007 world cup.

Bokke ja! Bokke ja! Bokke ja!

And then it will begin. They will leave the change room to meet their destiny. To deliver dreams. To be one of the heroes they once idolised. All it will take is 80 minutes of their lives. The time it might take to watch a movie. Maybe less time than a visit to the gym. It will be 80 minutes of moments. Moments of brilliance. Moments of doubt. Moments of despair. And maybe, hopefully, one of triumph.

Go boys.

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