Springbok and Shamrock in Early Days

It has, to be fair, been the closest part of Irish-South African competition on the rugby field.

Irish players had played against South African players from 1896 on when those teams came to South Africa which were later called the British & Irish Lions. In fact the 1896 had two Irishmen, Tommy Crean and Robert Johnston who stayed on in South Africa after the tour and were each awarded a Victoria Cross during the South African War.

Crean may just be the greatest rugby personality ever to tour South Africa – a big, handsome, rambunctious Irishman who was also a medical doctor and yet loved a fight and was wounded in both the South African War and World War I in which he was awarded a DSO.

The first time South Africa won a Test overseas was in Belfast in 1906. They had lost in the mud and the freezing cold in Glasgow the week before, crossed the narrowest bit of the Irish Sea and played Ireland  at the Balmoral Showgrounds in Belfast on 14 November 1906 and won 15-12 when each side scored a penalty goal but South Africa scored four tries to three.

The Springboks led 12-3 at half-time but then dapper Basil Mclear ran from his own 25 to score a brilliant try and the Irish, using the 3-2-3 scrum formation wheeled and dribbled for two tries by Harold Sugar and the scores were level at 12-all.

The Springboks attacked, Japie Krige kicked diagonally and Stegmann on the wing gathered and set off for the line.

In those days – and indeed for many years – the sides each provided a touch judge. The Springbok touch judge was Klondyke Raaff who ran bounding down the touchline with Stegmann and as the wing scored he flung his hands in the air in triumph. One hand held the touch judge's flag, but the referee, John Tulloch, the president of the Scottish Rugby Union, was not misled and awarded Stegmann the winning try.

Mclear, incidentally had a South African connection. His grandfather was Sir Thomas Mclear who built a cairn at the highest point on Table Mountain, which is still there and still called Mclear's Beacon.

In that match the Springboks, whose jersey by then was settled as myrtle green with a springbok badge, played against Ireland in white. Later it became the custom that when Ireland played South Africa, the home team wore white – as the Springboks will do at Newlands on Saturday.

After the first Test, against Scotland, on the 1906 tour, the next time the Springboks lost a Test in Europe was in 1965 and their opponents were Ireland.

The teams met again on 30 November 1912, this time at Lansdowne Road and the Springboks established a Test record by winning 38-0, a record that stood till they beat Scotland 44-0 in 1951.

Against Ireland on that freezing cold Dublin day, the Springboks scored 10 tries. For the first time a Springbok scored a hat-trick in a Test In fact two of them got hat-tricks – Boet McHardy, who was the first to a hat-trick, and Jan Stegmann, the brother of Anton who had scored the winning try four years earlier. The Springboks have not had two hat-tricks in the same Test since then.

That was a  Springboks team popular for its exciting backs. The next team, in 1931, was not nearly as popular but then that winter was a horrid one, as was the winter on 1960-61. The captain of the 1931-32 Springboks was the autocratic Bennie Osler, the man who invented the box kick and the grubber kick and made a speciality of the dropped goal. Ireland led 3-0 at half-time through a penalty by Larry McMahon but in the second half Morrie Zimerman and Frankie Waring scored tries  for an 8-3 win.

There was a new Springbok in that side, chosen at the age of 20 before he had played for Western Province, who would have a huge impact on South African rugby – Danie Craven, a national president from 1959 till his death in 1993.

The Springboks toured again in 1951-52, the first time after World War II. They were a wonderful team. Craven regarded them as the best Springbok team of all time and he had played for the Springboks throughout the 1930s when they ruled the rugby roost.

Michael Dowling of Ireland refereed the 44-0 Test and the next Test was in Dublin – an exciting match which the Springboks won 17-5 but which their captain Hennie Muller thought was the Test they came closest to losing on the tour as the Irish forwards got stuck in and the great Jackie Kyle used the strong wind to good effect in the first half. Scoring 11 points in the last 13 minutes made the victory look more comfortable than it really was. The Springboks scored four tries, two by flank Basie van Wyk.

The Springboks went again to Ireland in 1960, the fourth of its successive Grand Slam tours – this time a dour but brave side, battling  the weather and opponents intent on defence.

As in 1951 the Irish scored first in the 1960 Test, eight days before Christmas. Tom Kiernan kicked a penalty goal and that was the half-time score – 3-0. But early in the second half John Gainsford, a big centre with clever feet, levelled the scores with a try. The score stayed 3-3 till injury time as the Springboks could not breach the Irish defence. In injury time the Springboks put the ball into a scrum five yards from the Irish line. Ronnie Hill heeled, the Springboks held the ball and shoved Ireland back over their goal-line where Hugo van Zyl dropped on the ball for a try which Dick Lockyear converted.

The next time the two countries met on the rugby field was at Newlands on 13 May, 1961, 55 years and a few days ago.

If you went to Mullingar in the 1970s you may well have met a friendly man whose biggest boast was "I'm the only man in Mullingar who's been to South Africa." He was Tom Cleary, the understudy to Andy Mulligan as a scrumhalf in Ronnie Dawson's side, the first of four Irish teams to play in South Africa, not counting the 2016 side.

That team played four matches on its tour, the first the Test at Newlands. There were four Van Zyls in the Springbok  team – wings Ben-Piet and Hennie, flank Hugo and lock Piet. Ben-Piet and Colin Greenwood each scored two tries and the great Doug Hopwood the fifth as South Africa won 24-8.

Twenty years passed before South Africa were again victorious over Ireland, 20 difficult years as most of the world found apartheid increasingly unacceptable. The next time they again met Ireland in South Africa was in 1981 and again it was at Newlands. The Springboks won 23-15 and they won again the only other time they played at Newlands, 26-17 in 2004.

Ireland have yet to win in South Africa but history is there for the making.