Hero of the week: Ox Nche

It was Marie Antoinette who coined the phrase: “Let them eat cake!” when told of the starving in the streets of Paris during King Louis XIV’s reign almost 300 years ago.

But on a night in the same city few would have imagined that a cake-eating beomoth would shake Parisian foundations to their core with a performance that would earn his countrymen a chance to take a gold chalice - well, perhaps that’s pushing it a bit - home with them a week later.

Ox Nche, the quiet-mannered, smiling prop whose twitter pic of him with a slice of the sweet stuff alongside a sign that reads: “Salads don’t win scrums” - is the hero of the hour.

Dear Ox, please reach out to us for a year's supply of chocolate cake.

After last night, it’s a South African priority 🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/VuhytRZ8vs

— Woolworths SA (@WOOLWORTHS_SA) October 22, 2023

While the pic went viral, Nche did exactly what he was supposed to. He came on and made a difference in the scrum.

With the Boks in trouble, and 15-6 behind on the scoreboard with time ticking down, Nche saddled up, and gave some of the sweet stuff - in the form of a monster scrum - back to the Bok fans.

In all he was instrumental in the Boks winning four scrums in a row, and while Vincent Koch will claim the bragging rights for the fifth and crucial scrum that gave Handre Pollard his penalty, Nche was the hero personified.

Pollard took the honour for man of the match with the 50-metre bomb that tilted the scoreboard in the Boks’ favour but every Bok fan knew where that came from.

The momentum shifted up front, in the dark places that props only chuckle about. It was here, away from the camera shots that the Boks’ World Cup was saved, and they lived to fight another day.

So when Nche wants another slice of cake, buy him a Parisian patisserie.

He deserves to have his cake and eat it too.