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Still no pity for poisoned All Blacks 25 years on: 'No one forced them to eat seafood days before final'
By Liam Heagney
Nearly 25 years on from South Africa’s breakthrough World Cup triumph, Ed Griffiths, the 1995 SA Rugby CEO, still hasn’t sympathy for the excuse from the beaten All Blacks that some of their players were ill for the final following food poisoning.
This Monday - May 25 - marks the 25th anniversary of the opening match of the third World Cup finals, a victory for the host Springboks over defending champions Australia in Cape Town.
That first-day success ignited the winning run that took the self-styled Rainbow Nation, featuring in their maiden finals following the end of apartheid, all the way to the June 24 decider in Johannesburg which they won against the All Blacks courtesy of an extra-time drop goal from Joel Stransky.
While South Africa celebrated jubilantly, their joy encapsulated by president Nelson Mandela presenting the trophy to winning skipper Francois Pienaar, New Zealand coach Laurie Mains blamed the hotel his team had been staying in for a number of his players falling sick ahead of the final.
This 1995 sickness has become legendary over the years, a waitress named Suzie alleged to have been the phantom poisoner of the All Blacks. However, Griffiths has no pity for New Zealanders who were under the weather for the final, stating it was their fault - and nobody else - for eating seafood.
In an extensive interview coming soon to RugbyPass ahead of the 25th anniversary of the start of the 1995 World Cup finals, Griffiths said: “Look, it’s true that five or six of them did have a stomach upset and I remember seeing Marc Ellis vomiting on the side of the field, so it’s certainly true.
“But all I would say on that is they ate seafood, sort of prawns, crayfish and stuff days before a World Cup final. I mean, most people would know that seafood is something that at the wrong time can give you food poisoning and clearly some of them seemed to have picked up food poisoning from that.
“There was all talk of this woman called Suzie from Southern Sun and there were all sorts of rumours about it. I remember Laurie Mains talking about it. But all I will say is that whatever they ate it was their choice to eat it. No one forced them to eat seafood days before the World Cup final.”
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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