Players without passion are like Danie-less dreams

BUSINESS DAY, 23 MAY 2002

IN 1995, IN the week or so before the biggest month of my life so far, I was bothered by a persistent dream. In this dream I am sitting in the locker-room at Newlands, one sock on, the other still in my hand, my boots beside me. From outside I hear an unearthly noise, a rumbling, swelling drone, as though a swarm of bees the size of mastodons were descending.

But it is not a swarm of bees the size of mastodons. It is the sound of the world in anticipation. It is the sound of the whole of SA leaning forward, rubbing its hands, stamping its feet. I am wearing a Springbok jersey, and as I sit there blinking in the half-light, I realise that I am in the South African team to run out in the opening match of the World Cup.

In my dream, as I sit there in the locker-room, berating myself for not having kept in shape, cursing that pack of cigarettes last weekend, I am gripped by at least as much excitement as fear. In my dream I know that I am in no condition to play international rugby – I am scarcely in condition to play with a rubber duck in the bath – but I am tingling with the possibility that I will be able to do something, that I will be on hand to take the pass or put my body in the way of Timmy Horan or do something to help us win.

Danie Gerber is my centre partner. He looks at me appraisingly. “I think you had better go to second centre,” he says.

“I think you had better hang onto the ball in the backline moves,” I say.

He nods and pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he says, “we’ll get through this.” And then we run out of the dim locker-room and into the sudden white light, and that is where I always woke up.

After the World Cup started and we won the first match, albeit without the help of Danie and me, I stopped having that dream, but to this day I remember the almost unbearable mix of fear and elation when I realised I was about to run out in green and gold in front of my nation. This week Percy Montgomery withdrew from the Springbok set-up in order to go play club rugby in Wales. I know that Percy Montgomery has been a Springbok many times before, and so the feeling is dulled and the novelty has worn off, but I still think he is a pale shadow of a man for turning his back on the Springbok jersey. I understand that money is important. Believe me, I do. But it is still just money and there is no cheque in the world so large and with sufficient zeroes that I would swap it for that feeling I had back in 1995 – even if it was just a feeling in a dream.