Remembering Joost van der Westhuizen

The Springboks legend's fighting spirit on the pitch made him the type of player Justin Marshall and Christian Cullen loved to hate, but off the pitch it was a different story, writes Scotty Stevenson.

The plan was to hoist the New Zealand flag on the Woodridge College flagpole. What better way to celebrate the All Blacks winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup when you are eighteen years old, at a boarding school in South Africa, and you’re the only one within a baboon’s bark of the Van Staden’s bridge hoping to see the Springboks tipped up in the final of their historic first home tournament.

That flag never fluttered. Instead, in the dining hall that evening, the entire school stood and sung Shosholoza while that kiwi boy pretended to be the slightest bit interested in a plateful of bland spaghetti Bolognese. That was after Joel Stransky’s extra-time dropped goal; after Nelson Mandela’s victory smile; after Francois Pienaar’s “43 million South Africans”, after Joost van der Westhuizen’s one-man mission to tame Jonah Lomu.

Motor Neurone Disease finally tamed Joost today, six years after being given two years to live, and almost 22 years after playing the game that came to best define his fighting spirit as a player, before his battle with MND defined his fighting spirit as a human.

“People talk about that tackle on Jonah,” says Justin Marshall, the former All Blacks halfback who in recent years became a staunch supporter of van der Westhuizen’s fundraising effrots. “But it wasn’t just one tackle on Jonah. I just remember time and time and time again Jonah would get the ball and Joost would be there to stop him.

“He was assigned that day to stop Jonah. That was the mission he was given. Trust me, when you are sitting in a team room that is the one mission you do not want to get from the coach.”

Justin Marshall last saw Joost van der Westhuizen a couple of years ago at a private game farm on the outskirts of Pretoria. By that time, his former nemesis was wheelchair bound, had largely lost the ability to speak, and conversed with people with the aid of a translator. A neck brace helped keep his head up. For Marshall, who was joined at the retreat by that other great halfback of the age, George Gregan, what struck most was that Joost still refused to let the disease get the better of him.

“You won’t believe this, but he took me hunting!” He says with a reverential chuckle.

“Joost loved to hunt, and wanted me to share that experience with him just once. So we headed out, and I shot an impala, and his eyes lit up and I could tell he was just so chuffed to be able to allow me to experience that part of his life.”

It gets even better.

“Tradition dictated that, given this was the first impala I had shot, I had to take a bite of the heart. I can assure you, no translator was required for Joost’s laugh while he watched me undergo that initiation.”

It is reductive in the extreme to think about van der Westhuizen’s career and single out that one game on June 24, 1995. All up he played 89 test matches, and 111 games in total for the Springboks. He scored 38 international tries – a staggering number for a halfback and further evidence of just what a talent he could be – and perhaps more than any other play-maker of his age could prise a victory from the jaws of defeat.

Joost van der Westhuizen didn’t play with the consistency of Gregan or the firebrand temperament of Marshall. He could have quiet days when he was prone to mistakes and susceptible to pressure. That said, he was the guy who could break open a game with one play that he and he alone was capable of making. When Joost was on a roll his team would respond. He was renowned for running but also had a subtle kicking game that was never truly acknowledged. He would draw the attention and make his team mates shine.

Marshall again: “There were times when you played him and he did something scarcely believable, when you just threw your arms up and thought ‘well, what the hell could I have done about that?’”

Christian Cullen first encountered Joost van der Westhuizen in 1996 as the All Blacks created their own history by winning their first series on South African soil. Cullen had watched Joost in 1995, had seen what he had done, and was aware of the risk he always posed.

“He was a different halfback to what we had,” says Cullen. “Joost was big, tall, and strong, and we loved to hate him on the field.

“We also had a lot of respect for him in the All Blacks for he was an uncompromising bloke who never took a backward step and played behind a fierce forward back. We always had our eye on him.”

A couple of years ago, Christian Cullen had his eye on van der Westhuizen from the stands of Ellis Park in Johannesburg. They had brought him out onto the field at halftime in test between the Springboks and the All Blacks in 2014. He stood, with the aid of a brace, and held the hands of his children. The crowd stood with him and cheered as one. For Cullen, the emotion of that moment was almost overwhelming.

“You could see how hard he was fighting,” he says. “And there he was with his children and this disease that was going to eventually rob those children of their father. That was hard to watch for me, as a father, and I will always admire how brave he was to stare down his affliction and make it as far as he did against all odds.”

There was something else: This wasn’t the first time Cullen had seen a player battle MND. His former team mate Jarrod Cunningham succumbed to the disease in 2007.

“These two guys had very different careers, but they are similar for one very good reason,” says Cullen. “When the going gets tough, they are the guys you want on your side.”

That eighteen-year old kiwi boy is pushing 40 now. He still remembers that afternoon in 1995 when the New Zealand flag was put back in the drawer and when his school mates celebrated long into the night. He still remembers what Joost did that day, and what he did so many times afterward. He still remembers that after Joost appeared at Ellis Park, flanked by his children, in 2014, the Springboks would go on to win the match, 27-25.

It was one final victory on that famous ground for Joost van der Westhuizen, who lost his last great battle, but still showed his brilliance.