Rugby World Cup: Webb Ellis Cup has lived a colourful life of its own
It’s one of the most famous trophies in world sport that you might expect to be kept under lock and key, but the Webb Ellis Cup has lived a rich and varied lift of its own, including spending some quality time in our reporter’s Brisbane apartment.
Never belittle rugby’s Webb Ellis Cup as some uppity gilded silver bauble which has only lived life in a sterile velvet case while travelling ~first class around the world.
The trophy has lived a wilder and infinitely more intoxicated life than any of the English and South African players obsessed with holding it in Yokohama on Saturday.
The symbol of world rugby supremacy has been chased by barefoot kids in South African townships and worshipped by drinkers in the public bar at Goondiwindi’s Railway Hotel.
It has stopped traffic in Christchurch and even had its own business class seat on a British Airways jumbo when flying to London after the epic 2003 decider in Sydney.
Making an impromptu visit to my dishwasher? That’s another story.
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South African wing legend Bryan Habana once eloquently described what the Rugby World Cup meant off the field was greater than the deeds in winning it.
“After our 2007 World Cup win, I remember black kids from rural townships running 2-3km barefoot behind the Springboks bus to get a glimpse of their heroes and that cup,’’ Habana said.
“You were part of a team that inspires hope in a country that so dearly needs it and that lifts up spirits.”
Former All Blacks giant Brad Thorn felt the same special lift when 2011’s World Cup-winners took the Webb Ellis Cup to Christchurch on their victory lap of the country.
Christchurch had been floored by a deadly earthquake just seven months before and the World Cup party had been dimmed by the city’s five games being relocated to other centres.
“I was a fan who somehow got to play for the All Blacks so, to me, those big trophies were always to be shared with the crowd or people who might never touch them,” Thorn said.
“The street parade in Christchurch was the big one for me and after it we were eating in a restaurant in Riccarton with the Webb Ellis Cup just sitting there.
“It’s only a piece of metal, it’s not curing disease or anything, but I thought I’m going to share this because today it’s not behind glass in an office somewhere.”
Thorn picked up the trophy and went to the roadside.
Curious motorists and pedestrians just started stopping to gawk, take photos and soak in a little of the magic of the Cup.
If you’d lived in Christchurch, knew the lives that had been lost and understood the anxiety of repeated aftershocks, you could fully appreciate what the gesture meant.
Those impromptu minutes and watching teammates Mils Muliaina and Ma’a Nonu sauntering down a corridor of the team hotel with a fist apiece on the handles of the World Cup after the final are two of Thorn’s favourite images from 2011.
Anthony Herbert and fellow Wallaby Phil Kearns were responsible for a name change only two hungover Aussies could possibly dream up after the 1991 Cup success at Twickenham.
``We’d arrived a little worse for wear at the airport in London and the check-in lady asked if the trophy was being tagged with the rest of the baggage,’’ Herbert said.
``I just came out with, `Bill’s going on board with us’. She looked a bit bemused so I explained it some more, `It’s the World Cup and we’re taking it home’.
``The William Webb Ellis Cup was a bit of a mouthful, so we did the normal Aussie thing and shortened it.’’
Herbert and Kearns figured the whole plane should join in.
``We were on an American airline so plenty of passengers had no idea what was going on but they still enjoyed a drink from the cup as we walked down the aisles,’’ Herbert said.
David Wilson and co repeated the Cup-swigging tradition with champagne for passengers on the flight home from London in 1999 when the “Bring Back Bill” campaign was a triumph.
World Cup-winner Matt Cockbain hadn’t got his hands on the Webb Ellis Cup for 20 years until the trophy joined a Classic Wallabies roadshow mid-year.
The #GoldBlooded Tour weaved from Darwin to Devonport and the Barossa Valley to Brisbane as part of a worldwide goodwill tour.
The magnetic trophy may wow corporate lunch guests but its true connection is with country kids, smaller rugby communities, schools and stops in unexpected suburbs.
“I’d kind of forgotten how faces light up and kids and adults are just drawn to that shiny gold cup,” said Cockbain, a flanker in the 1999 team.
“I won it in the pre-iPhone age so no one was posting on social media, those special moments in the dressingroom from 1999 are just in my head,” Cockbain said.
Anyone who has won the World Cup and looked closely enough at the detail will ponder why a gilded silver pineapple sits atop the lid.
For centuries, the fruit was seen as a symbol of hospitality and celebration and even offered to an enemy.
There will still be some prized photos kicking around Queensland’s Darling Downs from a special day in 1991.
Local heroes Tim Horan and Jason Little walked the World Cup through the door at Goondiwindi’s humble Railway Hotel and plonked the trophy on the bar.
There was a rollicking session with graziers, tradies, old school friends and whoever else represented the town’s Trotting Ducks, trophy-winners themselves in rugby that year.
Author Michael Blucher, who penned the Horan-Little biography Perfect Union, remembers driving off with the Wallaby duo without one rather important passenger.
“Bill” had been accidentally left behind if only for a few minutes.
“Bill doesn’t go anywhere without two security guards and a padlock these days but in ‘91 he could almost be left by himself while the party raged on,” Herbert said.
It’s true.
That’s why Bill, unaccompanied, visited the apartment I was sharing with Blucher in Brisbane’s Spring Hill the night before that country road trip.
Of course, Bill needed to sparkle for his pub and public appearances.
Why wouldn’t you pop him in the dishwasher just for a photo?
Originally published as Rugby World Cup: Webb Ellis Cup has lived a colourful life of its own
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