KEY POINTS:
This has been a great week for South Africa. But no one will enjoy the cricket win in Australia more than the father of the Rainbow Nation, Nelson Mandela.
The Grand Old Man will smile when he sees a South African team with a black African (Makhaya Ntini), a Cape Coloured (Jean-Paul Duminy) a Muslim Indian (Hashim Amla) as well as star players of English and Afrikaaner origin.
Mandela always knew the value of sport as a tool of unification in the new South Africa. After the ANC won the first mixed-race elections in 1994 he understood nothing would move the cause of integration ahead more quickly than Springbok success in the following year's Rugby World Cup.
Mandela's deft use of that tournament for political purposes and the serendipitous victory the Springboks squeezed out over the All Blacks is the subject of one of the best books I read last year and a movie of John Carlin's Playing the Enemy is now in pre-production.
New Zealanders wanting to read of their part in the final, and the supposed reasons the All Blacks didn't win, will be disappointed. There's plenty of acknowledgement that the All Blacks were the best team all the way to the final.
I reported for One News and if journalism is the first draft of history, then history was badly served. At least before the match I did say "this is more than a rugby match. It's a very important social and political, as well as sporting occasion for South Africa ..."
But the after-match reports are extraordinary for their myopic views. If I'm embarrassed at my reports, then the All Blacks reaction was shameful.
They retreated into lager mentality and no All Black players, coach or officials spoke publicly at the ground after the match.
I remember the following morning still hoping Sean Fitzpatrick or Laurie Mains might talk to the assembled New Zealand media. Instead the All Blacks started one of their famous "court sessions" which became a long drinking party.
At the end of it Mains, who wouldn't talk to New Zealand reporters at the door, went on Paul Holmes radio show in New Zealand and made his first suggestions the All Blacks food poisoning may have been suspicious. A few months later, the legend of the unproven, unseen and, I'm sure, non-existent "Suzie" was propagated as a primary reason New Zealand didn't win.
I realised later the 1995 Rugby World Cup was South Africa's destiny. It was redemption for a great leader who led them from 40 years of racial dictatorship, restoring justice not through force but through inclusiveness.
Even in the old days, South African cricket was always more liberal and inclusive in racial matters than other games. Mandela, now 90, and saddened by the racial friction in Springbok rugby, will be chuffed at what a real Rainbow Nation sports team has achieved.
