This is Your Everest

CHAPTER TWO

IT'S THE KAFFIRS, MAN

ANDRÉ MARKGRAAFF HAD a turbulent start to his coaching reign, but after the victory in the final Test against the All Blacks he was determined to keep the momentum going on the end-of-year tour. Before they could leave South Africa, not only did he have to deal with the fallout of the François Pienaar affair, he also had to reconfigure his backroom staff.

Morné du Plessis stepped down from the manager's role in August, disturbed by the waving of apartheid-era flags during the Test against the Wallabies in Bloemfontein during the Tri Nations. Du Plessis issued a statement condemning the gesture. He himself then came under attack for his statement and was left hung out to dry by Sarfu. The lack of support from Louis Luyt was too much for the former Springbok captain and he tendered his resignation.

With Du Plesssis gone, Markgraaff assumed all the responsibilities for team management. He appointed three young coaches as his assistants for the tour - Nick Mallett came in to help with the forwards, Hugh Rees-Edwards with the backs and Carel du Plessis was appointed as a general technical advisor.

It was vital that the tour was a success for the players on and off the field - and, despite everything, it was. Markgraaff's new-look team recorded two thumping wins over the Pumas in Buenos Aires, then defeated France in Bordeaux and at the Parc des Princes (and in so doing became the first Springbok team to win a series on French soil), and then steamrollered Wales in Cardiff in the last Test to be played at the old Arms Park. 'At the end of the tour I was exhausted, relieved and proud of my team,' said Teichmann. 'The 1995 World Cup was history. This new squad were the real deal and we flew home looking forward to the twin challenges in 1997 of the British and Irish Lions tour and mounting a serious campaign in the Tri Nations.'

At the end of an intense and tumultuous thirteen-Test year, Markgraaff had won six in a row; after enduring severe criticism and scrutiny at the start of his time, his team were now beginning to purr. The Springboks were playing devastating, expansive rugby; their set piece was rock solid and their defence was dominant. 'We can look forward to the Lions tour with real confidence,' declared the head coach in the aftermath of the Cardiff victory.

But there was another storm brewing. A calamitous one.

In October 1996, Markgraaff met with André Bester, one of his former provincial players at Griqualand West. After a while the conversation turned to the dropping of François Pienaar and the intense flak Markgraaff had received from the English-speaking media, particulalry the TV channel, Top Sport. Markgraaff had no idea that Bester was recording the conversation.

'The whole fucking Pienaar thing is politics,' raged Markgraaff, 'the whole fucking country is behind him - in terms of the press. Top Sport is the media. TV is the government. Top Sport is the government. It is a kaffir station . . . it is for the kaffirs . . . it's the government, the whole fucking lot, it's the government. That guy [Pienaar] can be walking on fucking crutches, but they still fucking want him . . . it's the kaffirs, man . . . it's the fucking kaffirs.'

Bester was a former captain of the Griquas; he and his brother Piet, also a Griqua, had a simmering grudge against Markgraaff for failing to renew their contracts with the province when he had been president of the union. André Bester later claimed that he had recorded the conversation because Markgraaff had reneged on a promise to make him the director of coaching at the Griquas. 'I taped the meeting so that, if my agreement wasn't honoured, I could have used it,' said Bester. In February 1997, the Besters leaked their recording to the press.

It was 8.00 p.m. on 17 February when the SABC (South African Broadcasting Company) released a snippet of the recording. Markgraaff later claimed that the audio had been doctored and that he had paid Dr Len Jansen, an expert in voice recordings, a vast amount of money to prove it. He admitted that he may have been drawn to utter the word 'kaffir' once, but not the numerous times it appeared on the tape. As if it really mattered how many times he said it. Once was more than enough.

The fallout was seismic. Markgraaff called a press conference in his hometown of Kimberley. He was in tears as he spoke. 'I'm not making any excuses, but I was very emotional at the time,' he said. 'I apologise to the black people of this country and to the whites for causing them embarrassment. I've not acted in a spirit of reconciliation and I hope you will forgive me. This is not easy for me and I herewith tender my resignation as coach of the Springbok rugby team.'

'I admired the way Markgraaff handled the situation because he didn't deny anything,' said the Springbok hooker, James Dalton, years later. 'He took accountability, called a media conference and explained the context to what he said, why he said it and to whom it was said. He then resigned, knowing the scandal was too big to save him as the Springbok coach. I watched his conference and felt sorry for him as he wept. I knew the feeling of addressing the country and being reduced to tears because the emotion was overwhelming. It had happened to me after my suspension from the 1995 Rugby World Cup after a fight broke out in the game against Canada. I know Markgraaff wasn't everyone's kind of person, but I'd grown to understand him on the 1996 end-of-season tour to Europe and, from a rugby perspective, I thought he and Gary Teichmann had formed a strong partnership as coach and captain.'

Markgraaff had been confident that the Springboks were back on the road to becoming the best team in the world, but now everything was in tatters. Not only was he gone, but an internecine war was breaking out between Louis Luyt at Sarfu and Steve Tshwete, the South African Minister of Sport, who wanted a state investigation into issues of racism and suspected financial irregularities within rugby's governing body. Brian Van Rooyen, a lawyer and former Transvaal Rugby Union vice president, produced a 500-page dossier of alleged abuses and malpractices in Sarfu. Tshwete appointed a three-member task team to investigate Sarfu, a development which enraged Luyt and his son-in-law Rian Oberholzer, the Sarfu chief executive.

To add to the tumult, on 2 May 1997, it was announced that the Springbok lock, Johann Ackermann, and two Gauteng Lions players, Bennie Nortje and Stephan Bronkhorst, had tested positive for anabolic steroids. They were banned for two years. South African rugby was in freefall.

With Markgraaff gone, Sarfu needed to appoint a new head coach. With all the other pressures they were under, the executive committee decided that the easiest option was to simply promote one of Markgraaff's assistant coaches. It seemed obvious to many that it would be Nick Mallett who would make the step-up. 'Among the players,' said Teichmann, 'the consensus was that Nick would be named as the new Springbok coach. He'd been the dominant personality among the assistant coaches on tour and he appeared ready for the challenge.'

Having enjoyed a successful coaching stint in France, Mallett had returned to South Africa in 1995 to take charge of Boland - and transformed one of the country's weakest provincial teams into Currie Cup quarter-finalists. His work with the Springbok forwards on the end-of-year tour had been widely regarded as excellent. But while Mallett may have been lauded by pundits and fans, behind the scenes he was regarded with suspicion. Having fiercely criticised the Sarfu executive committee in a magazine article - and been dragged over the coals for it - he had made enemies. There was a school of thought within the corridors of power that he was too headstrong and too emotional for the top job. Mallett got bypassed. Instead, it was Carel du Plessis who was offered the role. It was a decision that stunned the country.

In the wake of the appointment, the journalist Donald McRae sat down with James Small at his home in Cape Town. 'Shit,' sighed Small when the conversation turned to the Springboks, 'we've had five coaches in the past four years. On the tour back in December we'd started to sort things out again. Everybody had found their place in the squad. Now with a new coach, Carel du Plessis, who hasn't done much coaching at all, there's a whole new ball game. Players don't like this kind of uncertainty because it kills your confidence. So, right now, it's very unsettled in South African rugby. We've got all this shit off the field and, on it, no one knows what the new coach is thinking or which players he might want to use. We're starting from a clean slate - again.'

Du Plessis was born in the Eastern Cape in June of 1960. He made his debut as the Springbok head coach against Tonga in Cape Town on 10 June 1997, just two weeks before his thirty-seventh birthday. That Test with Tonga was the only game his Springboks played before they faced the Lions. Set against the ferocious backdrop of the Tromp, Markgraaff, Ackermann and Sarfu scandals, he faced a daunting start.

Du Plessis had never played against the Lions, but he had a long history with them. As a twelve year old boy...