Obituary: Aaron Geffin

By ARNOLD PICKMERE

* Aaron "Okey" Geffin, rugby player. Died Johannesburg, aged 83.

Four rugby test matches in South Africa in 1949 led to the Transvaal prop forward Okey Geffin becoming known for the rest of his life as "The Boot".

Against the All Blacks in the first test at Newlands in Cape Town, Geffin kicked a record five penalties to carry the Springboks to a 15-11 win. By the end of the four-test series he had kicked 10 penalties and a conversion - 32 points out of South Africa's total of 47 in their four-nil series whitewash.

In the first test series against the South Africans since World War II, the New Zealand losses hit hard. A Minhinnick cartoon in the Herald at the time showed a cluster of children listening apprehensively to a radio, with the announcer saying:

"All stations, national and commercial, are now linked for the Children's Hour ... Once upon a time there was a dirty big ugly goal-kicking Springbok named Geffin ... ".

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the Geffin legend is how close it came to never becoming a legend at all. On a speaking visit to New Zealand in 1980, Geffin told the Herald's then rugby writer, Don Cameron:

"If Jack van der Schyff or Hannes Brewis had kicked an early goal in the first test I would not be sitting here now."

In the dressing room before the game Danie Craven had announced that the kickers would be 1. van der Schyff, 2. Floris Duvenage and 3. Brewis.

"Then he turned round to me and said that I would be the last resort as goal kicker," said Geffin.

By the time the New Zealanders were 11-0 in front (including the only try of the game) van der Schyff and Brewis had both missed kicks.

"Then a penalty was awarded to us and the ball was on the ground at my feet. No one said anything so I thought that as I had been kicking for Transvaal I would have a go.

"I put one through the posts, then another and another.

"When the chance for a fourth penalty came along - the important one which would have put us in the lead - I picked up the ball."

But Duvenage came racing up and said that as he was supposed to be second kicker he would take it. The crowd let Duvenage know what they thought of the idea. The skipper Felix du Plessis arrived and asked Duvenage "Are you bloody mad?"

So Geffin entered the record books.