By Gielie de Kock who covered the recent Springbok tour of Australia and New Zealand for The Sportsman by arrangement with Die Landstem.

WHEN it comes to rugby, one would rather forget 1965. There were defeats in Britain, Australia and New Zealand - things a South African doesn’t want to remember. But it wasn’t such a bad year after all. For 1965 brought Gert Brynard and any year that can bring in a player of his calibre is worth remembering.

And that is why I am writing about rugby this time of the year instead of going to some sunny beach and forgetting all about muddy paddocks and scoreboards that just didn’t want to play the game with the Springboks.

Luckily, the editors of The Sportsman only wanted to know about Gert Brynard this time.

How can anyone who toured with the Springboks in Australia and New Zealand ever forget Gert Brynard? “He’s lucky,” I overheard somebody say when the team was announced in Cape Town. “I suppose he will be very useful in the mid-week games, seeing that he can play in any position in the backline. And after all, it is always a good thing to have a doctor in a touring team!”

The administrator who said this after Brynard’s name was read out couldn’t be blamed. For he only knew the Brynard that had played a few games for Western Province, Belville and Stellenbosch.

He didn’t know the other Brynard. The Brynard with a heart as big as the whole of his 5 ft. 9 in. The Brynard with 170 lbs. of guts. And that’s the Brynard we saw in Australasia.

That’s why coach Hennie Muller had reason to rave about him when we got back. “The best wing in the world,” Hennie told reporters.

“HAVEN’T SEEN BETTER”
Muller didn’t have much to rave about after the tour and maybe he got carried away a bit. “I haven’t seen all the wings in the world and wouldn’t know,” he said. “But I do know that there can’t be many better or even nearly as good as he is.

” It was Brynard’s life ambition to become a Springbok. But this alone wasn’t enough for the young Bellville doctor. “It is not good enough to be just a Springbok. I want to be a GOOD Springbok,” he told me long before we left South Africa.

And he became just that.

But it nearly DIDN’T happen. He got his place in the Springbok test team for the first international in Australia. He got it because he defended better than anyone else in the previous State games. But, ironically, a try was scored on his side of the field and Gert was dropped for the second test.

That was the last time he saw a test on the tour - from the sideline. He forced his way back with brilliant play. But most of all with courage.

He didn’t have the build, weight, side-step or hand-off to become a really great international wing. But he made it nevertheless because he had the guts.

“No wing is better than I am. He is just a human being like me with two legs and two arms. If he’s better he must first prove it,” he said.

RIGHT APPROACH
Gert wasn’t boasting when he told me this. I knew him too well for that. It was just his way of looking at things. His success on the tour showed that he had the right approach to big-time rugby.

I saw him score tries that I will remember as long as I live. Not because of the points that they brought South Africa, but for the way in which he scored them.

Who can forget the way he ran through (that’s right, THROUGH) the All Blacks in the third test for his two tries?

And the one in Auckland against the Ranfurly Shield holders when he ran for more than 70 yards to score behind the posts?

Tries like those don’t come easily in international rugby. And that is why Brynard will always be remembered for the part he played on the field. Brynard the rugby player was one of the biggest successes of the tour, if not THE BIGGEST.

He gave everything he had. To play for South Africa was an honour for him. A Springbok jersey meant more than almost anything else. He played to win. But let’s forget about Brynard the rugby player for a moment. Let me tell you about Gert Brynard, the man. The Brynard who was one of the happiest members on tour and who made friends wherever he went.

DOOR ALWAYS OPEN
As the only medical doctor in the team he had a lot to do off and on the field. But his door was always open - even for pressmen and supporters. He was never too busy to help. And in John Gainsford he found the ideal “nurse”. At the end of the tour John knew almost as much about Gert’s medical kit as the doctor himself!

I once knocked at the door of the room they shared and found only Gainsford in. I had a bad cold at the time and decided to come later.

Before I could leave the room Gainsford searched in the big medical trunk and passed me a handful of pills. “The best,” he explained with a professional air. I had my doubts and kept them in my pocket until I found Brynard. “That’s quite all right,” he said. “If that won’t help, nothing else will.

” Brynard must either be a good teacher or Gainsford a brilliant pupil!

When one meets Brynard for the first time he gives the impression of being a happy-go-lucky type. For him the sun always shines and his phrase “I’m so glad to be in New Zealand” soon got picked up by the rest of the team.

That’s the one side of Brynard. But when you get to know him better you discover that there is also another Brynard. The Brynard who doesn’t hesitate for a moment to say what’s on his mind if he thinks he is justified in doing so.

PRIVATE TALK
In one game in New Zealand when it didn’t go too well up front, he did more covering in the line-outs than most of our forwards. I was there that night when about 18 Springboks had a little private talk in his room. I wanted to leave immediately when I saw which way the conversation was going. “Listen, we have nothing to hide. You came to visit me and you stay here,” Brynard said.

So I stayed. The players knew that something was wrong and they tried to iron out their mistakes. That night I again realised how much moral and physical courage this small wing possesses. He spoke to some of the forwards present. All good friends of his. “Look, boys, if you can’t get stuck in there and hit back and climb in, I’LL go and do it for you. ” Nobody took offence for they all knew Gert and knew that he meant well.

Just before the third test at Christchurch, I decided to predict that we were going to win. And, of course, we did.

It was Tiny Naude’s great kick that clinched the game for South Africa, but actually it was the four tries that Brynard and Gainsford scored between them that paved the way for the Springboks’ victory.

I visited the two friends the evening before the test. John Gainsford was as confident as ever. “We are going to beat them tomorrow and Gert and I are going to get two tries each. . . .” Brynard agreed. And I was there to see them do it.

But even if I should forget this and everything else, I will always remember Brynard for the way he acted in an affair in which I was personally involved.

After defeats in Australia and the loss of the Springbok head in Wellington, there was an atmosphere of hush-hush in the “Circus”. Players received reports of what we of the South African Press party were writing about them from back home and some of them didn’t feel too happy about it.

IGNORED PRESS
At one stage one got the impression that most of the Springboks deliberately stayed out of the way of the South African reporters and some of them even ignored us pointedly.

It was an uncomfortable state of affairs and with Gert Kotze of Die Vaderland and C. O. Medworth of the Natal Mercury as spokesmen, we raised the matter with the Springbok Tour Committee. Those who had something on their minds got rid of it and we all went back to our hotels feeling much better.

But before this meeting was called, Brynard and I once discussed the unhappy circumstances. “Look, nobody tells me whom to talk to and who to make friends with. If people want to criticise me let them do so. That’s what you blokes are here for,” he said.

Afterwards I was told by another player that Brynard had stood up at a gathering of the players and told them precisely that. Once on tour I was accused by one of the Springboks of something I knew nothing about. Then once again it was Brynard who had the guts to stand up and defend someone else, in spite of the fact that he could have been blamed for not showing the “right team spirit.”

That’s Gert Brynard. He pulls no punches. Exactly how much he contributed to the team spirit I learned one evening when he, Wynand Mans and myself were chatting in Mans’s room. At that stage Mans was playing brilliant rugby and it was a pity that a player with his potential had to be left out of the test sides.

Brynard was the first to realise this and as there were rumours that Tiny Naude might lose his test place, Brynard felt that the team needed a goal kicker. “They must play you, Wynand,” he said. “Of course, I would like to play myself, but if they select you, I will be the first to say that you deserved it. Only make sure that you beat them.

” Brynard didn’t just SAY this. He MEANT it. As a matter of fact, he even repeated it to Hennie Muller.

BRYNARD SYMPATHISED
Mans, however, didn’t make the test side. But even if he hadn’t got injured, I doubt whether the selectors ever thought of dropping Brynard. But it was Brynard who sympathised more than anyone else with Mans. Brynard, who was born at Calvinia and went to school at the Paul Roos Gymnasium, Stellenbosch, showed the same perseverance in his personal life.

When he left school he didn’t have enough money to go to university, but he decided that he wanted to become a doctor and nothing in the world could have stopped him. After school he worked for a year to save some money and then he went to the University of Stellenbosch where men like Dr. Danie Craven and Wouter Hugo helped him a lot.

Things didn’t come his way without effort, but Brynard achieved what he had set out to do.

His rugby career at Stellenbosch started without much fanfare. He first played for the Day Students’ team at Stellenbosch and got his chance only when most of the available University scrum-halves had withdrawn from the Stellenbosch junior team for a tour of Natal. When the team returned he got his chance in the second team and eventually made the first team.

Two serious knee operations (first on the left knee and then on the right) kept him off the fields for more than a season but, characteristically, did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm. And then in 1963 he got his first big chance. A friend telephoned from a farm at Stellenbosch to tell him the happy news - that he had been selected for the Western Province team.

“All the Stellenbosch players who have been selected are coming over,” the friend invited. Gert and his attractive young wife, Rhoda (she is a daughter of former Springbok Peewee Howe’s brother) accepted the invitation, still doubting the validity of the news.

When they arrived at the farm Gert suddenly felt a pain in his knee. He told some of the guests about it but they didn’t take much notice.

LIKE A BALLOON
But after only an hour Gert had to leave the party because of the pain. “The knee was the size of a balloon by then,” Rhoda told me afterwards.

When the guests realized that something serious was wrong they took him to hospital and for the next few days he was treated at home by a doctor friend. But the swelling didn’t subside an inch, in spite of the fact that a lot of water had been drawn from the knee.

Thursday came and still he put off notifying the Western Province selectors. “It was one of his greatest moments in his life to be selected for Western Province and he wanted to play desperately,” Rhoda told me.

Then came Friday - and he was smiling again. The knee felt almost normal and he got up and ran a few yards. “I didn’t think I would ever get the chance again, that’s why I kept quiet about the injury,” he told me a bit sheepishly.

He played against Eastern Province and was criticised by some reporters afterwards. This didn’t get him down. It only inspired him to do better in the next game.

STILL A NOVICE
“When I was still a novice in senior rugby, Wouter Hugo told me that when the Press took the trouble to criticise I should feel happy, for it meant that they were interested. When they said nothing about me - that was the time to worry! I always remembered that.

” He told me this during the tour. Then he looked up with the eyes that a New Zealand reporter had described as “the most lively and determined eyes” he had seen on any sportsman.

“If you praise me, don’t ever do it when you don’t mean it. But if you want to criticise my play, don’t hesitate. I will appreciate that more than the praise, for it is much easier to praise a friend than criticise him.

” FEW CHANGES
I remembered that and looked for opportunities to criticise his play on the tour. But I didn’t get much of a chance in New Zealand.

Chances to praise him, however, were numerous. And every time before I started typing those words of praise, I remembered what he had said: “Never do it if you don’t mean it.

” I never did, but I did write more about him than any other player on the tour. Not because I regarded him as a friend. Not because I thought he was a man among men, or because he was such a likeable person.

I wrote about him because he was a GOOD Springbok!

I am not a selector. But if ever I should be given the opportunity to select or help select a touring team, I would insist on players with the heart and guts of a Gert Brynard.

Then I would be prepared to take on any team in the world, including the All Blacks.

And that is why I say that 1965 wasn’t such a bad year for South African rugby after all. It produced Gert Brynard.

The Sportsman, December, 1965