Speed, talent, commitment and demons
As the Springboks fight for their fourth World Cup, former captain Francois Pienaar recalls the legendary James Small and his role in the 1995 triumph
James was a youngster who broke through the ranks into the Transvaal team. He was catapulted to fame at a very young age. He went into the U20 set-up and then straight into the Transvaal team from school. I remember watching him and being impressed with his physique, how strongly built he was at a very young age. He was also fast. His body was in peak condition. He was physical and I remember thinking: “Wow, this guy has looked after himself. He has obviously trained hard.”
Remember, those were the days of amateur rugby, you didn’t have the standard conditioning programmes of today. You’d train with the team rather than on your own, but you could see that James was spending many hours training away from the team.
James also pushed the boundaries when it came to cockiness. He was good looking, and as a young kid coming through the top teams, it would have been difficult not to be cocky. If I’d had his looks and his build I think I might have been cocky too. So he was very confident, but that added to his success. He didn’t doubt himself, he backed himself, and that was very much part of why he was successful.
Sometimes it got him into trouble and that was when he had to reassess and had to be pulled back a bit. Some players who were very close to him would guide him in those instances, or the senior players and coaches would say to him: “Listen, this is the line in the sand; we are not going to take that.” Jannie Breedt was captain at Transvaal when James started so I never had the responsibility of having to lead him in those early days. I only got to captain him when we played together at the Springboks.
In New Zealand in 1994 he smashed his hotel room when Mac [Ian McIntosh] dropped him for the last Test of that series against the All Blacks. It was extremely difficult for me to captain the side in that situation. What do you do? He went crazy. And he’d do that when things weren’t going his way. He would really lose it. The red mist would descend, but then a couple of days later, he’d come up to you and say: “Hey bro, hey cuzzy, I am sorry,” and give you a hug. It was difficult not to forgive him. That, though, was when you’d have the opportunity to say to him: “Hey man, don’t do that ever again.”
I well remember the incident ... when I came off the field fuming after we beat England at Newlands in the second Test of the 1994 series. James had sworn at me. I was extremely angry. Fortunately, Mac stopped me because I was angry. I was absolutely livid.
We were favourites to win that series. If you look at what happened in the games played before the Test series, England really struggled and they lost to several of the provincial teams. Transvaal and Natal beat them handsomely. But then we went into the first Test at Loftus and there were two up-and-unders well executed by England and suddenly the eyes were wide. I was already worried before that game, which I told Mac. So it was do or die for us in that next Test. We were going to New Zealand a few weeks later and we just had to win that game.
So discipline was a key focus that week as we looked to bounce back in Cape Town, and James just wasn’t disciplined.
I told him to buck up and he shouted at me from the side of the field. And then, of course, I can also get some red mist.
So Mac was the one who jumped in front of me and told me to calm down, he said he’d talk to James later. I did calm down, but I also let James know that what had happened would never happen again.
The idea that James’s behaviour towards his teammates on the field came from his soccer background does make a lot of sense. Soccer is not as disciplined as rugby, so there is a prevalent culture in the round-ball game where you can say stuff and it probably isn’t even thought about, whereas in rugby when you say something it is really taken to heart, and that was the side of him that could get him into trouble.
James contributed a lot in the build-up to the 1995 World Cup final. We had a fantastic team that would die for one another. I know it sounds silly, but we would put our bodies on the line, and James would be one of those who would be in front. He would give everything, he wouldn’t care about his safety when he was playing for the Boks.
Were we friends when we played? No, I don’t think so. There was the relationship between a captain and a teammate, and I had a job. I always said I had a job to do leading the team over 80 minutes and I couldn’t let someone on the wing lose his cool and give away crucial penalties resulting in us losing the game.
We saw that in 1994. I learnt a lot about leadership on that tour in New Zealand, how they baited us. They picked out Johan le Roux in the first Test and got under our skin, and the penalties we gave away as a result of us not being able to deal with it without reacting cost us dearly. In the final Test, even though there was chaos in the camp and that was the week James had wrecked his room, we were leading 18-15 with just a few minutes to play when Brendan Venter gave away a penalty when he reacted to Sean Fitzpatrick pulling his jersey. That kick enabled the All Blacks to escape with a draw in a game where we scored two tries to nil.
We learnt a lot about ourselves on that tour and I knew I couldn’t allow that to happen again. When you are playing against a top side the games are always tight and small things can cost you. You needed to bring discipline and focus and I needed to be strict about it.
After we had our conversations in 1994, we as a team knew the rules. It wasn’t just James, it was everyone.
My relationship with James was one of captain and player, it was only after we finished playing that I got the opportunity to know him better and to get to know him and his kids and the special relationship he had with them.
His death came as a horrible shock. I had just arrived in Mykonos when I got a call from former Springbok physiotherapist
Evan Speechly saying that James had been brought into a hospital in Johannesburg. I just thought, “Oh no, man.” And then we tried to find out more and when we heard, it was shattering.
When you reflect on it, James was fast. He was fast on the field, he was fast off the field. He lived a very full life.
We would put our bodies on the line, and James would be one of those who would be in front
✼ This is an edited extract from No Rules — The James Small Story, as told to Simon Borchardt and Gavin Rich, available to order at jamessmall.co.za. Book proceeds go to The James Small Trust, which provides James’s children, Ruby and Caleb, with financial assistance for their education