Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Bobby Skinstad names his hardest man in rugby and it's not Bakkies

Bakkies Botha squares up to Sam Whitelock (Photo by Anesh Debiky/AFP via Getty Images)

Former Springboks skipper Bobby Skinstad has named his hardest man in rugby… and it’s not the feared Bakkies Botha, the South African second row who sent a shiver down the spine of numerous players around the world during his pomp.

ADVERTISEMENT

The 47-year-old Skinstad was the guest on episode 230 of Eventful Lives with Dodge Woodall, the founder of the famed Bournemouth 7s Festival which is set to be staged on May 24-26.

The 85-minute podcast interview compellingly covered a myriad of topics, ranging from racism, Nelson Mandela, and whether Siya Kolisi could make a post-playing career in South African politics.

Video Spacer

Pieter-Steph du Toit with Big Jim – Teaser trailer | RPTV

Double World Cup winning Springbok Pieter-Steph du Toit hosts Jim Hamilton in Japan for an all-encompassing chat about the Rugby World Cup, horrific injuries and Chasing the Sun 2. Watch the full chat on RugbyPass TV

Watch now

Video Spacer

Pieter-Steph du Toit with Big Jim – Teaser trailer | RPTV

Double World Cup winning Springbok Pieter-Steph du Toit hosts Jim Hamilton in Japan for an all-encompassing chat about the Rugby World Cup, horrific injuries and Chasing the Sun 2. Watch the full chat on RugbyPass TV

Watch now

As the conversation neared the end, Woodall asked Skinstad to name his hardest man in rugby.

It left the former Springboks back-rower painfully casting his mind back to the time when he tackled an out-half and ended up in Cape Town’s Claremont Hospital. Henry Honiball was the culprit who poleaxed him.

Related

“There are always stories about Bakkies Botha because he was just a big beast of a man and I love him because he lived that persona as well,” began Skinstad. “I wouldn’t say he is a softie off the field but he did enjoy the physical side of it.

“He would always look for opportunities to hurt someone and then enjoy it afterwards and tell you about it and it would be a fun thing.

“But the hardest man I ever played with or against was a guy called Henry Honiball, who was an Afrikaans guy who played fly-half for the Sharks and South Africa and his nickname was ‘Lem’ which is Afrikaans for blade which I didn’t do the maths on.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I did a pick-and-go playing for Western Province and I thought, ‘Okay there is the 10, that’s easy. I have got past the flank. I’ll just drop a shoulder on him and we will either get an offload or we get momentum in attack as long as I got over the advantage line’.

“I dropped my shoulder and he came in to hit between your elbow and your shoulder. I thought, ‘Okay, I got that’. Dropped the shoulder and ended up in the Claremont general hospital from a shoulder-level tackle from a fly-half.”

Skinstad finished the story by referencing the 1998 win by the Springboks over the All Blacks in Wellington, the first time South Africa had won in New Zealand in 17 years. “Then I played with him against the All Blacks and they made a circle around him.

“We beat New Zealand in New Zealand and he was man of the match and we just made a circle around him. Just looked at him because he couldn’t speak English properly and they weren’t going to venture into Afrikaans.

ADVERTISEMENT

“For them, it’s a big respect thing if someone has beaten them, so you have Jeff Wilson, Andrew Mehrtens, all these guys around, and they were just like looking at him, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay’, a big circle of head nodding and then they just wandered off.”

  • Click here to listen to Bobby Skinstad on Eventful Lives with Dodge Woodall 
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

3 Comments
T
Troy 220 days ago

When Sth Africa had Joost and Honiball at 9 and 10 they were almost impenetrable in and around the ruck. Even Jonah couldn't make headway in those channels so they were very hard to get in behind. They had a fantastic side who played a fast, rugged style which won them the Tri Nations during that period. That side would beat their current mob of which I have no doubt.

L
Lou Cifer 220 days ago

“Ou Lem” leading that ‘98 team to a 13-3 victory was the stuff of legend! Especially since we hadn’t beaten them for many years. 10/12/13 combo of Honiball, Pieter Muller & Andre Snyman were tough as nails! I remember screaming my head off in the early hours of the morning & my brother hitting a hole through one of the bedroom doors🤭😂

Load More Comments

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 2 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.


Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about trying to make so the worst teams in it are not giving up when they are so far off the pace that we get really bad scorelines (when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together). I know it's not realistic to think those same exact teams are going to be competitive with a different model but I am inclined to think more competitive teams make it in with another modem. It's a catch 22 of course, you want teams to fight to be there next year, but they don't want to be there next year when theres less interest in it because the results are less interesting than league ones. If you ensure the best 20 possible make it somehow (say currently) each year they quickly change focus when things aren't going well enough and again interest dies. Will you're approach gradually work overtime? With the approach of the French league were a top 6 mega rich Premier League type club system might develop, maybe it will? But what of a model like Englands were its fairly competitive top 8 but orders or performances can jump around quite easily one year to the next? If the England sides are strong comparatively to the rest do they still remain in EPCR despite not consistently dominating in their own league?


So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).


You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.


I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?

120 Go to comments
f
fl 5 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

120 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Ireland centre Bundee Aki ends speculation with decision over future Ireland centre Bundee Aki ends speculation with decision over future
Search