Gold at end for rainbow nation

Rugby World Cup:On the coldest night of the 2007 World Cup, even to vast swathes of rugby followers in their own living-rooms or bars, Saturday's final probably left them a little cold too.

Perhaps you had to be in South Africa to really appreciate the warm glow the Springboks' victory brought. To them, the winning was everything, and if it can have anything like the spiritual feel-good effect they hope for, then sport cannot be all that bad.

Apparently the scenes all over a green-bedecked South Africa were extraordinary. For however long it lasts, their captain, John Smit, has spoken of a changed country. And, understandably, only when they return to the warm bosom of their country and a specially arranged sequence of parades in various cities will they begin to fully appreciate what these 2007 Springboks have achieved after four years of unstintingly hard work toward one objective more than any other. Nothing, not even a Tri-Nations success or beating New Zealand in their own back yard for the first time since 1998, could remotely compare to this.

Accordingly Smit, the impressively articulate and all-embracing symbol of this success, even when understandably bleary-eyed after going to bed at 3am, admitted at their team hotel in Bercy at midday yesterday that the win had still to sink in.

"I must be honest - it hasn't sunk in just yet," he said. "I think it is one of those things you will only understand what's happened when you get home.

"Obviously it has been massive winning the World Cup and seeing the supporters last night and enjoying it with our families and our friends. I don't think it sinks in till a little bit later."

Outside, the tourists mingled and took pictures around Place de la Concorde and life resumed as relatively normal despite an ongoing transport strike on a beautifully sun-drenched if crisp Parisian Sunday morning.

Smit, still sporting the scars and a swollen left eye from the match, grinned when asked if beer tasted better when drunk from the Webb Ellis Cup.

"Somehow it absolutely does. Everyone had a crack last night when we got together afterwards once we got to the hotel, so every single guy has had a sip out of the cup. It's hard to take your eyes off it, we've worked so hard for it."

Their equally impressive and articulate coach, Jake White, who has retained his dignity and ultimately his well-placed confidence throughout four astonishingly difficult years, again sounded all the right notes at a curiously sparsely attended press conference.

"This is much bigger than South Africa rugby," he said. "To see our state president on the shoulders of one of the players, with the William Webb Ellis Trophy in his hands, there's no bigger statement in our country than that. What we need as a nation is to understand how big this is. There's no reason why South African rugby and South Africa can't take this as a huge plus and build on it. There's a lot we can draw from this little cup."

Repeating his belief that South Africa perhaps squandered some of the opportunities presented by the 1995 triumph, he was short on the specifics of how South Africa as a nation or even South African rugby could actually maximise the feel-good factor arising from this success.

Pending next week's match against Wales and a December date with the Barbarians, to be coached by Eddie O'Sullivan (by no means a warm friend of his), White wryly expressed his satisfaction as much in actually reaching the end of his four-year contract on December 31st as in winning the World Cup.

"It would be hard to hand the team over to someone else," he remarked. "It's nice when you're world champions and everyone's giving you accolades, but it's a lonely place when you're down.

"I look around and I think to myself so many things have changed. It's amazing how they say in politics a week is a long time, but in rugby, I tell you, 80 minutes is a fantastic thing."

In the absence of any apparent long-term strategy for South African rugby, and mindful the brickbats are likely to start flying again, he will probably depart, possibly to Wales (from frying pan to fire?), where along with Warren Gatland he is shortlisted to succeed the unceremoniously sacked Gareth Jenkins.

The Springboks' brawn drain is nothing like that of the All Blacks, though Smit (two-year contract with Clermont Auvergne), Victor Matfield (one year with Toulon), Butch James (one year with Bath), Percy Montgomery (Perpignan), Gary Botha (Harlequins) and the out-of-sorts Ashwin Willemse (Biarritz) are moving on either for good or temporarily.

"We are very unsettled at the moment and don't know what is happening in South African rugby," admitted their outstanding scrumhalf Fourie du Preez on Saturday night.

"Lots of contracts finish this year and there is a lot of uncertainty. We will deal with it at home. Hopefully, common sense will prevail in South Africa rugby."

Given the end of an era for the Wallabies, White hinted that this was an opportunity for the Springboks to lord it in the Southern Hemisphere, perhaps suggesting "transformation" should be a more gradual process than the union, Saru, clearly want.

On the importance of race in South African rugby, Smit had said on Saturday night, "We have a really colourful country, a diverse culture and 11 different languages. The amount of forward momentum we have gained in the last 12 years, since the last time we picked up this cup, has just been incredible. I hope it will create a scenario where everyone buys into it and celebrates together.

"Two of the most important guys in my life are Bryan Habana and JP Pietersen. There's certainly no colour in our squad. There's one team. Every guy gives what he has. It's a great step forward for us to celebrate as 45 South Africans when we get home on Tuesday."

That said, two non-white players out of 22 a dozen years on from the 1995 triumph is slow progress in the eyes of the South African government, and rugby now has the chance to be a more powerfully unifying effect on a country with institutionalised poverty and inequality.

It's only a game?