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Chester and Habana tops when it comes to Bok RWC hat-tricks

rugby04 August 2020 15:23| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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There have been six try-scoring hat-tricks from Springbok players at Rugby World Cups and if you measure them on a mixture of the importance of the game and the amount of individual brilliance relied on by the players then the feats of Chester Williams and Bryan Habana lead the way.

Ironically, both achievements came in World Cup matches against Samoa (they were still known as West Samoa in the first instance) and on both occasions they were in games played on the road to an eventual World Cup triumph for the Boks. And both times the respective left wings got in for another try to make it four just for good measure.

What really made Williams’s four-try heroics in 1995 tournament so special was that it came in a quarterfinal, and the late former Western Province and Lions superstar was also playing his first game at that World Cup.

He’d been in coach Kitch Christie’s plans before the tournament but was ruled out in the weeks building up by an injury that cleared up just in time for him to be called up as a replacement for Pieter Hendricks, who was expelled from the tournament following the infamous ‘Battle of Boet Erasmus’ final pool game against Canada.

THE WAITING WAS DEFINITELY OVER

Williams’s face had been plastered over many lampposts, his bill-board comment proclaiming that “The waiting is nearly over” as part of the South African Airways advertising campaign. The national carrier was one of the sponsors of the 1995 tournament.

Well, he didn’t have to wait long to get into the action and to make his mark, with two legendary Boks of that era in Joost van der Westhuizen and Andre Joubert combining in the cross-field sweep that sent him over for his first try in the left corner.

He featured twice on the way to his second try, as did Ruben Kruger, who joined him in helping create the hat-trick try in the second half.

Sadly Kruger and Van der Westhuizen, like Williams, passed on from this life way too young but will be forever remembered for the role they played in that epoch making 1995 success for what was then still a fledgling democratic nation (the first democratic election had been held the year before).

HABANA’S FEAT FEATURED THE MOST INDIVIDUAL BRILLIANCE

Habana’s four tries against Samoa came in the opening Bok game of the 2007 World Cup at the old Parc des Princes stadium and was by some distance the one of the six South African RWC hat-tricks that featured the most individual brilliance.

The opening match of a World Cup campaign is always a nervy game and the way Habana bamboozled the Samoan defenders on his way to a try that, as one of the commentators said should really not have been scored, would certainly have played a big role in calming his teammates down and getting the confidence to surge through their veins. The scores were still close at the time.

Several times it looked like Habana, who went on to be crowned as the World Rugby Player of the Year after that tournament (actually it was still IRB World Player back then), was covered by defenders. He probably thought so too as it did look on several occasions like he was shaping to pass. Perhaps that confused the Samoan defenders for Habana just used his footwork to keep going until eventually he was presented with enough grass on the outside for him to turn to his other strength, serious pace, to finish it off.

His second try wasn’t completely dissimilar as again he used his stepping and his pace in a run that started on the halfway line. There was also individualistic brilliance in his third try, as he used his quick thinking to score off a tap penalty, with only the final try, where he still also took the ball some way from the line, really being the only one of the four where you could say it was laid on for him by his teammates.

JP HELPED DRIVE RECOVERY FROM BRIGHTON

Talking of wings and talking of Samoa, another important game for the Boks was their match against the islanders at the home ground of Premier League survivors Aston Villa in Birmingham near the start of the 2015 World Cup.

Well, arguably it wasn’t near enough to the start for the Boks, for their start to that RWC had actually been the loss to Japan in Brighton, a day most South Africans would want to forget.

But that was what made the Samoan game, the second in the tournament, so important. Coach Heyneke Meyer had made it clear that several of his players were at a cross-roads in that game, and indeed it was already a must win as defeat would send them stumbling out of the tournament. But they managed to put together a composed performance that was headlined by a hat-trick of tries to JP Pietersen, who along with Habana was a veteran of the 2007 win.

Pietersen didn’t have to do too much for any of his tries, but getting over the line would have been a big confidence booster both for the player and the team.

EQUALLING LOMU’S RECORD

Habana of course also managed a hat-trick at that World Cup and is thus the only Bok to have scored two RWC hat-tricks. Significantly, his three tries against the USA at the London Stadium in the final pool game enabled him to equal late All Black great Jonah Lomu’s record tally of 15 World Cup tries.

If you watch the video you will note the role played by players who were to feature in the Bok World Cup-winning effort in Japan four years later in the first two tries - one was the product of a Francois Louw inspired turn-over and for the second he ran off a surge through the middle from Damian de Allende.

He was clearly eager to get that record for his third try was the product of sheer improvisation as he took it upon himself to sneak around a maul to pick up on an opposition mistake near their own line and dive over with a huge smile on his face.

THE QUICKEST HAT-TRICK

Scrumhalves were responsible for the two non-wing Bok hat-tricks, with Cobus Reinach’s effort against Canada last October being notable both for the fact that it was the quickest try-scoring hat-trick in World Cup history and for his spectacular first score that featured on most try of the year replays.

His three tries came in the space of 11 crazy minutes, with the so much talked about first try coming off a move that started with a set scrum deep inside Bok territory.

Reinach took the ball off the back of the set-piece before bringing inside centre Frans Steyn into it as first receiver. Reinach took the ball off Steyn on his inside and then burst through a gap before loping a kick over the remaining line of defenders to gather and score.

If it was Reinach’s skill and pace that marked the first try, no doubt as a result of the genes passed on by his late father Jaco, a former Springbok wing, the second try was marked by the power and athleticism of one of the big men in the World Cup winning squad.

It was indeed big RG Snyman who did most of the work, being held up just short of the line before Reinach foxed the Canadian defenders by fainting to the left but instead using the momentary opposition indecision by holding onto the ball and diving over the line.

His hat-trick try, which came in just the 20th minute of the game, featured a sublime kick pass from flyhalf Elton Jantjies onto wing Warrick Gelant, thus making the video of this hat-trick a good advertisement for what the Boks did right in 2019.

FITTING END FOR JOOST

Not much went right for the Boks at the 2003 World Cup but Joost van der Westhuizen, standing in as skipper to allow regular captain Corne Krige to rest, did enjoy a great individual moment when he crossed thrice in the big Pool win over Uruguay. In none of the tries did he have much to do, running off a mauling effort from an attacking lineout for the first and Ashwin Willemse, the best Bok player at that tournament, providing the momentum for the second. In the third he ran through a melee of players on the Uruguay tryline.

However, given his influential role in creating so many great tries for his teammates over the year, it was fitting that he ended his career with entry to the role of honour when it came to Bok hat-tricks.

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