You could see Siya Kolisi’s foot going underneath the table while his head coach, Jacques Nienaber, was talking. Thump, thump, thump. “We are fortunate in terms of the support we’ve had from our legal team,” Nienaber said. “We were shielded from it, we stayed in our own bubble,” thump, thump, thump. “So for us it was business as usual.” Thump, thump, thump. Nienaber and Kolisi didn’t want to say much more about the decision not to charge Bongi Mbonambi. On Saturday, South Africa play the biggest game of their lives against New Zealand in the World Cup final. And the captain, Kolisi, thump, thump, thump, is impatient to get on with it.
“It’s probably the biggest occasion that we will ever be part of, probably the biggest rugby game there has ever been,” Nienaber said. “One and two in the world rankings playing each other in the World Cup final, and whoever wins will be the first country to win a fourth World Cup. It’s massive.”
