This All Blacks ‘can do what we couldn’t manage in 1995’: Josh Kronfeld

Josh Kronfeld has just one clear memory of playing in the most celebrated rugby match in history. And it is not a good one.

“The only part of the game I remember is the drop kick,” a ruefully smiling Kronfeld said of the 1995 Rugby World Cup final in Johannesburg. As the All Blacks open-side flanker, it was Kronfeld’s job to stop Joel Stransky kicking South Africa into extra-time history. But as with so much on and around that fateful day at Ellis Park, it seems to him it was just not meant to be.

“I remember trying to get off the scrum, I was pretty quick in those days but there was just nothing left. He was just so far back in the pocket. It wasn’t in my DNA at that time to think he was going to drop kick, I was just so tired.”

Twenty-eight years on, the New Zealander can appreciate plenty of the similarities his compatriots face will face in Saturday night’s Stade de France final – not least the way World Cups “create union in the whole of South Africa” – but he is confident the end result will be different.

“The way we are playing the game is capable of beating South Africa,” the now 52-year-old Kronfeld said in Paris. “It’s a great opportunity to showcase who we are as All Blacks and as a country. We have a skillset that is quite unique in our backs, our forwards are fully capable of matching them and the bomb squad.

“For sure they can do what we couldn’t manage.”

The stories on the 1995 final are as endless as they are infamous. The food poisoning that took down 18 of the All Blacks 21-strong playing squad has always grabbed headlines. Kronfeld, who was suffering chronic diarrhoea leading up to the game recalls the “queue out the door” when he went to see the team doctor and full-back Jeff Wilson vomiting “throughout the match”.

But ultimately, conspiracy theories aside, far more momentous memories of the occasion and the tournament as a whole fill his mind.

“Everywhere we went the black community were there with hand-sown All Black jerseys right down to the fine details of the fern, chanting ‘Go Blacks’ and wanting autographs,” Kronfeld said. “Those are the things I think of first and then Nelson Mandela and the line and Francois Piennaar, the replica jersey and the number six on his back. I remember looking down and being awed by the fact Nelson Mandela was about to shake my hand.

“In my heart of hearts, my sporting heart I don’t believe there was any cause involved (in the food poisoning). It was just bad luck.”

Aged just 24 at the time and in the nascency of an All Blackscareer that would ultimately deliver more than a half century of caps, Kronfeld got over the 15-12 defeat relatively quickly.

“I always felt there was some little hand of God involved, which made it easier to deal with,” he laughed. “Also, a really, momentous and unique and a significant part of South African history and I was there and experienced it.”

Not that he wants this All Blacks squad to have to go through a similar process. “Hitting them at the point of contact and pushing the D (defence) into their advantage line to put pressure on their pass” will be key to success, according to Kronfeld. As will scrum-half Aaron Smith’s ability to “maintain the tempo”.

Do that and Kronfeld is sure it will be his countrymen creating history this time and lifting the Webb Ellis Cup for a record fourth time.