1984 Rugby Union Test match: South Africa Springboks vs England (2nd Test)

[@bolshoefeodor6536]

Why am I finding these 1980s games way more interesting and entertaining than anything World Rugby currently dishes up in the professional era?

[@Trajan2401]

Because they are too many cards and stoppages now

[@e-moshe]

I think because they were from the amateur era where there is more of a free flow, greater chance for the unexpected and a romanticism to it. I myself miss how France, Free State and (in some periods) how the then Transvaal used to play. This bygone era was notably less calculating, clinical, technical and sports science driven as the professional modern era is. It drives out the spontaneity, free flow and heart that was before. That, and far more technical rules - some of which are very necessary in the professional and higher intensity era.

[@Itstinner]

Yeah, agree with all your comments. Since professionalism, the qualities such as ball handling, lineouts, athletism etc has improved. But it's also brought a fitter more organised defence. There are a lot less missed tackles as well. All this I think can make it more difficult for teams to create free flowing rugby. I loved the old free flowing rugby from this period but hated all the dropped balls and kicking from England.😆

[@user-vp3vs6ey3r]

I find the 1980s games way more interesting and entertaining simply because the rules of the modern game encourage play that is so much more repetitive, patterned and predictable. And also for the reasons that have already been stated: too much TMO interference, red/yellow cards (15 v 14 is not a competitive game), resetting of scrums, unstoppable rolling mauls, technical penalties (especially at breakdowns), overemphasis on player safety. And because Danie Gerber has retired.

[@proudlion1010]

Alive, well and re-watching this in 2021, 37 years after watching it live with my Dad and Grandpa... the names just give me chills ... Gerber, Heunis, C. Du Plessis, Tobias, R. Louw, Stofberg, Serfontein, Sonnekus, Rudi Visagie, Burger (snr) ...; just a few of the Eternals of the game... Thank you for the upload!

[@SuddenStorm982]

Saturdays 15H30, those were the days !😁

[@Teacher-lj6in]

Pity Naas Botha was playing in the US that year...this was a magnificent Bok side... Rob Louw a remarkable flanker...

[@jamesstafford1514]

Would much rather watch Errol Tobias in action and see him score as we did here.

[@annefilippobertozzi7601]

Tobias was underrated: he was a great fly half, and with him Gerber touched many more balls…

[@dwyescott8121]

Was 1st year at Rhodes University then in Botha House watching the the game with good mates in our common room and pub. What a great year and great game!

[@yb6310]

dont suppose any black people were allowed in that common room.

[@eiremike1]

Thank you for posting this game Da Underground Mane. Its awesome to see these old games and the first Black Springboks in action too. If you have any more old Springbok game, please post them

[@rohitchristopher1283]

Gerber, best center of all time

[@stephendavies8510]

Sella and horan way better.

[@annefilippobertozzi7601]

@@stephendavies8510they were absolutely at the same level. Gerber was out of radars because of the apartheid ban, but he was an heck of a player… he got everything: size, speed, hands, tackling, kicks, side steps. Fantastic center.

[@NickSchoonwinkel]

Really nice to see my elementary school friends Gerrie Sonnkus play again. In elementary school we played together, High School against each other. As well as quite a few times, when he was still a student from Bloemfontein, he played for Welkom Rover Club during university holidays. .

[@etnarongiselva8361]

Two things. First; The beautiful register and with the follows scenes from a country that (between the 50s and 80s) was something similar to a United Kingdom set in the plains of the American old west... or an ''Australia African'', so to speak... Lastly. The old regime was uneconomical in the way it was installed. And it became financially unsustainable after the gold standard broke in 1971. The South African government was slow to promote reforms in the country (only in the mid-1980s). Even so, the old South African country deserves, on the other hand, sincere congratulations, for having saved Namibia from becoming a new Zimbabwe or Mozambique.

[@thomascullimore9693]

Gloucester rugby great John Fidler playing his last ever game of Rugby in this match, should have had alot more caps.Playing here aged 36.

[@riaannel1378]

Nice to hear Chick Henderson again

[@Yardbird68]

Very interesting watching these older matches. The only England player I heard of was Richard Hill who's a coach ( I think ) for some club in the Aviva Premiership. On the SA side the names are more familar or should I say there players in todays SA clubs with the same last names, I wonder if the Schalk Burger from this match is the father of the Stormers Schalk Burger? I also think the one commentator is Hugh Bladon ( spelling?) who is STILL a commentator for Currie and Super 15 SA rugby, my fav SA commentator....it sure sounds like him but a younger voice. Thnaks for these earlier treasures mate! Cheers from the USA

[@clampetts]

Richard Hill was coaching Worcester last season, but he got sacked even though he was doing pretty well; certainly better than Dean Ryan is now doing with them. Now, surely, you must have heard of Peter Winterbottom? He's probably the most famous England flanker of all time.

[@MrJeepsters]

Eddie Stephens si on ne connait pas Winterbottom, on ne connais pas le rugby

[@jonathanmichaud7396]

John Hall was a very good flanker for Bath and England. Winterbottom for England and the Lions....Dusty Hare. Rendall, Brain and Pearce are well known by England fans.

[@hermanvanstaden3758]

Yes Schalk Burger is father and son.

[@stephenbrown3334]

Gerber an amazing center one of the best

[@thefobbieii2888]

NO - he is the best centre ever! From a kiwi!

[@floydkingi4364]

The best ever, from another kiwi!

[@hanoitripper1809]

⁠a shame the Boks missed the 87 cup, would have won it for sure!

[@stephendavies8510]

​@@hanoitripper1809it wasn't a shame at all they didn't deserve to play also they have always been a dirty team.

[@hanoitripper1809]

@@stephendavies8510 the dirtiest team of all is nz historically

[@mrange20]

Danie Gerber staan kop en skouers bo almal in hierdie wedstryd. Walk into any Springbok team till today!

[@buddypop9358]

I’m happy North America is finally embracing our sport. The new laws make the game faster. Making me wonder how we survived the Game in the 80’s or further back. I love being able to my wife the scrum crash.

[@gerhardsmit578]

Simply love this videos. But I've watched the highlights of the first test, ref very biased. Now, at this moment, penalty against SA, for a perfectly legal tackle. Never high! Under the shoulder blade. Even for those days rules...?

[@fitobaldueza]

great. thank you!

[@naidoo307]

Why Engeland taking a penalty when they are 100 points behind with 5 minutes to play 😅

[@MrJeepsters]

avec cette équipe, en 1987 ils auraient posé beaucoups de problèmes aux black et aux australiens

[@henryoosthui3495]

What a Springbok team the best in the world

[@andremeyer863]

What happened to the magic water medics used in those days?

[@kevinoliver4931]

Absolutely super rugby channel. 👍

[@henryoosthui3495]

No centre for gerber best ever

[@henryoosthui3495]

Heunis man van George

[@henryoosthui3495]

Really good engelse kry pakslaaaaaa

[@francelewiss7030]

Rugby Jersey were so different back then

[@darren2514fv]

Steve Brain never played for England again after this tour and many of the 1987-91 World Cup Squad and the 1991 and 1992 Grand Slam winning sides played in this tour

[@tamabrightwell4536]

Very poor English side but the Boks played well

[@jamesp1441]

Good ole' leather rugby ball :)

[@robicenco1]

I've never really got why this England tour (and the Ireland one a few years earlier) didn't cause more of a fuss, and why they aren't remembered with the same condemnation as the rebel cricket tours of South Africa from 1982-90. I guess rugby union was an amateur game, but even so, it was a pretty major sport in England and very much so in South Africa. I know Ralph Knibbs (black England player) chose not to tour with the team, but apart from that was there any controversy at all? Was the infamy of the cricket tours just because the players were being paid, while these guys weren't? (I mean, I'm sure they were under the table, but officially not)

[@myroseaccount]

Even fewer people in England gave a shit about Rugby than do today

[@rmr3403]

Dusty Hare, legend. England were a little bit like Dad's Army at that time.

[@rmr3403]

+Richard Russmann Boks were not at their best, but had Danie Gerber, Theuns Stoffberg, Carel du Plessis who are three of the boks greatest ever. Errol Tobias was a great running flyhalf and in fact the boks of the 80s were the most attacking team by far in the world. Poor England.

[@asterixdogmatix1073]

Thanks for the upload. Do you have any of the NZ Cavaliers vs Boks games from 1985?

[@rossbrown6641]

Cavaliers were racists, mates. Forget them!

[@bolshoefeodor6536]

@@rossbrown6641 Please, just get lost.

[@Teacher-lj6in]

Cavaliers were thecrwal deal..NZ bar one player...and handsomely paid by a starved ZA rugby public...and well beaten un 3 of the 4 tests...

[@BawlzOfuzz]

Daanie Gerber! Wow!

[@vjmightyw]

They called a side step a jingle in those days. Danie Gerber with Maniekies Roux was dynamite!

[@mrange20]

Gerber op sy beste! Divan speel die Faf game goeie skoppe.

[@aspacepigtaipei]

Carel du Plessis aka The Prince of Wings

[@user-xq1oq9bf6c]

Boks pre neutral ref era had some great players. But as all fans whose teams played in south africa , had to contend with blatently bias officiating of tests, hense why teams couldnt win a series there.

[@JeffreyPullen-lp4oe]

The springboks would have won the 87 World cup

[@lockk132]

Not at Eden Park...sorry

[@andremeyer863]

Stofberg died couple of weeks ago in car accident. Schalk Burger Paarl Gym, du Plessis Paarl BHS. My home valley.

[@johnmckenna1823]

Why on earth did they let Palmer continue. He was either concussed or had a broken jaw. You could see that when they tried to put his gum shield back again.

[@henryoosthui3495]

Gerber best centre

[@soidog659]

What a clean and exciting game of rugby. Time to hit the “reset button” and erase all the useless new Laws.

[@MarkHewitt]

This was a year after the 1983 British Lions Tour to NZ, where Winterbottom was literally a one man team. That Lions Tour showed the folly of the selection process where Cieran Fitzgerald was the captain and had to play in the Test Side when he was a totally inferior player to Colin Deans, who went on the Tour, and Peter Wheeler who was left off the Tour.

[@henryoosthui3495]

Theuns Stofberg very big

[@henryoosthui3495]

U dont stop thens mts stofberg

[@henryoosthui3495]

Rudi Visagie almost kill butcher

[@pablovaz4401]

I´m very surprised about crowd do not boo Errol Tobias... in 1984 there was still apartheid

[@aboriginalbrotha9947]

I believe fans were cool with him being on the Springbok side. In cricket after the South African team were suspended from world cricket in 1970, Barry Richards and several South African players played on the World XI in the tour of England and they didn't had a problem sharing the locker room with their teammates who were Aussies, Kiwis, West Indians, Pakistanis, and Indians. Richards, Proctor, Pollock, and Barlow were treated real well by their teammates despite the apartheid rule in their country. They had to play county cricket for years and some South Africans had to play for other nation sides until suspension was over in 1991.

[@pablovaz4401]

Da Undaground Mane I don´t know what can I say... emm, I mean, in that period I wasn´t born but I can imagine that if black players are playing in a country with a separation rule (which means that a race is "better" than the other one) and in a "sport of white men", for them that situation would be very complicated, but I don´t if the fact that in a sport, at the end, everyone are equal in spite of his race equalise everyone, but I can´t say if South Africa case is the same than in the rest of the world. If you see the people in the grandstands, obviously, everyone are white, and they were thinking in that moment that his race was "better" than the others one, and watching a player of another race playing in a "sport of white men" wouldn´t like them so much... do you understand me? I´m not racist, I don´t consider a race better than anothers one, but in South Africa I think that the problem of the races will continue, and in rugby more than in other cases.

[@georgekoen6972]

I am not. I watched Tobias et al play and I can tell you, there was never any animosity about them playing for South Africa. It is sad you found it necessary to even make this comment. A lot of South Africans were not racist and appreciated any player who was good enough to play.

[@rmr3403]

+Pablo Vaz He was much loved as are all Springboks. Sadly the madness outside the field continued but while on the field people forgot all about colours.

[@rmr3403]

+Richard Russmann Avril Williams is also playing btw.

[@trevorcook9680]

Think about what

[@zabaleta66]

Not the strongest England team. Decent loose trio, front row and a nuggety halfback in Richard Hill.......John Scott at lock!? I guess Maurice Colclough had retired by then.

[@xpat73]

+Dazzaman no...Colclough played until 1986....maybe he was injured.

[@azraelfoster6762]

winterbottom the best ever number 7 for england ever till today.

[@Teacher-lj6in]

John Scott captained the English side...

[@davidverster4142]

Many think Apartheid a poor system. It was not and South Africa was the best run country in Africa. Just look at it now...their citizens fleeing to Europe...Why. They have their indepedence

[@williamburnie1227]

David Verster

[@annefilippobertozzi7601]

Apartheid was a crime. But this doesn’t negate the truth that SA was the best run country in Africa, either.

[@chrisbaxter3597]

Saffers essentially professionals due to Apartheid- big point to prove- England enthusiastic amateurs from army or public school - too soft for me

[@stephenmcloughlin7718]

England would have te advantage of playing many more matches at a higher level.

[@michaellilienfeld4137]

Buy bitcoin

[@murraymallinson1337]

Twelve years before the end of apartheid and two black players are playing for the Springboks. Makes you think, doesn't it?