How Mandela inspired Springboks to conquer the world

File photo taken on June 24, 1995 shows South Africa's then president Nelson Mandela with South Africa's rugby team captain Francois Pienaar. [AFP]

Francois Pienaar, even 25 years on, conveys a sense of disbelief and awe when he talks of that crisp Highveld winter’s day that thehttp://10.1.1.208/online/admin/articles Springboks won the Rugby World Cup for the first time.

The Springbok captain’s wonder is not so much about the fact that his team won the Webb Ellis Cup at Ellis Park on June 24 1995, for he says he always felt they could pull it off, but that he received the golden trophy from President Nelson Mandela.

“I am probably the luckiest sports person ever because of the unique relationship (with Mandela),” he says of a man who became a father figure to him.

Their close bond, a young white Afrikaner and the famous black prisoner of Robben Island, grew out of Pienaar’s captaincy of the Springboks and Mandela’s visionary and altruistic support of a team who played in a jersey many of his followers despised.

It started with a cup of tea, he told AFP.

“The president invited me to visit him in his office at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. We talked about all things –- not just the World Cup. He wanted to know a lot about me.”

“There were so many high-powered people waiting outside to see him and every time Mary (Mxadana, Mandela’s assistant) would come in to hurry him up he would say to her: “Mary, I’m speaking to my captain.”

“I know it sounds bizarre. You have no idea of his aura, the genuineness, the sense of humour. We laughed. There was an immediate bond,” says Pienaar.