One of the favourite questions I am asked, and the most often, is what was the best win of my career. Everyone always expects the Rugby World Cup final and all the memories that go with that, but mine is the 2nd test in 2000 against South Africa in South Africa.
We went there in the summer coming off a Grand Slam crushing defeat to Scotland and with England having not won on South African soil for a lot of years. We weren’t really expected to win and memories of the RWC 99 quarter-final defeat were still fresh in some of the players' memories.
We played well in both tests and should/could or maybe won the first having lost to a controversial TMO decision that denied Tim Stimpson a try in the second half. I remember how much that result stung, I remember watching Lawrence Dallaglio’s interview as he walked off the pitch say that there was no way we would lose next week. It was one of the lightest weeks of training we had ever done before a test match, our bodies were so sore from the first test that Clive really looked after us and he knew that we just needed to be fresh for the 2nd test.
The boys didn’t let him down. I remember the tension and border line anger that was carried over from the week before. Lol making sure we all knew we owed them one, the hostility of the Bloemfontein crowd. Even though we lost two men to the sin bin (Lol and Leonard) we did not panic and backed our defence, plus having Wilko on fire with the boot didn’t harm our cause. We were on the wrong end of another TMO decision awarding a try to SA which brought them closer but not close enough and we held on for the win.
This game was so important to me as I believe this is the game that changed that squad. To go and beat a Southern Hemisphere team on their own patch, our mentality completely shifted and we knew we were good enough to take on anybody. This was proved over the next three years by not losing to a Southern Hemisphere team again till after the 2003 RWC. That tour has so many good memories, all built on two fantastic games.
Memory added on April 20, 2021
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