On the 20 year anniversary of the Rugby World Cup's first ever match, we relive the 1987 tournament through the eyes of some of its leading stars.
Turn the clock back 20 years to the first ever Rugby World Cup match and one image springs to mind, that of All Black wing John Kirwan scything through the Italian defence to score one of the most memorable tries ever seen.
The Eden Park crowd were on their feet to roar on the Auckland-born wing, television viewers on the edge of their seats, all wondering whether the young wing would do the inthinkable and go all the way.
“I was always going to score and I think that’s an attitude that everyone should have,” Kirwan told Total Rugby. “If I didn’t score, at least I’d had a go.
“That day it just went well, but I’d done that 20 times that year and not scored. But unless you take off with the intention of getting where you want to go, you’ll never get there.”
The best years
To say that the mazy run “went well” was an understatement. Italian would-be tacklers grasped at thin air as Kirwan registered one of the defining moments in early Rugby World Cup history.
He ended as the tournament's joint leading try scorer, but of all six scores, that one sticks in the memory.
“When we talk about emotion and when we talk about the excitement of playing sport at this level ... I think it was the emotion that I felt that day, just the inner strength and the will to really want to play rugby, to really demonstrate that I had something to offer,” Kirwan added.
“And so when I think back to that try it’s just an incredible feeling of strength and confidence, which I try and call on when I’m under pressure or things aren’t going so well.
“When you express yourself in whatever you do, you feel an inner strength and an inner joy. And that day I’ll always remember taking off. I don’t really remember too much about the action, but when I got there and stood up, just the incredible strength, internal strength that I felt. I felt that I could beat the world and that’s a lovely feeling to have.”
Playing to their talents
New Zealand’s victory in that first Rugby World Cup, though, was not just down to the magic of Kirwan; under coach Brian Lochore they had played a modern brand of rugby that was exciting and ruthlessly effective.
“We realised we didn’t have forwards that were big enough to take control of some of the big nations of the world who had bigger forwards than us,” Lochore recalled. “But we had athletic forwards and forwards with brilliant skills.
“So we set out to make the game as wide as possible – I remember talking to the forwards and saying ‘will you run to the breakdowns at the wings?’ They said 'yes' and I said ‘right, well that’s where we’re going to play it.”
The rest, as they say, is history and as the class of 2007 now set out to emulate the feats of their predecessors of 20 years ago, Kirwan will also be focusing on the big prize, albeit this time as coach of Japan.
To say that the mazy run “went well” was an understatement. Italian would-be tacklers grasped at thin air as Kirwan registered one of the defining moments in early Rugby World Cup history.
He ended as the tournament's joint leading try scorer, but of all six scores, that one sticks in the memory.
“When we talk about emotion and when we talk about the excitement of playing sport at this level ... I think it was the emotion that I felt that day, just the inner strength and the will to really want to play rugby, to really demonstrate that I had something to offer,” Kirwan added.
“And so when I think back to that try it’s just an incredible feeling of strength and confidence, which I try and call on when I’m under pressure or things aren’t going so well.
“When you express yourself in whatever you do, you feel an inner strength and an inner joy. And that day I’ll always remember taking off. I don’t really remember too much about the action, but when I got there and stood up, just the incredible strength, internal strength that I felt. I felt that I could beat the world and that’s a lovely feeling to have.”
Playing to their talents
New Zealand’s victory in that first Rugby World Cup, though, was not just down to the magic of Kirwan; under coach Brian Lochore they had played a modern brand of rugby that was exciting and ruthlessly effective.
“We realised we didn’t have forwards that were big enough to take control of some of the big nations of the world who had bigger forwards than us,” Lochore recalled. “But we had athletic forwards and forwards with brilliant skills.
“So we set out to make the game as wide as possible – I remember talking to the forwards and saying ‘will you run to the breakdowns at the wings?’ They said 'yes' and I said ‘right, well that’s where we’re going to play it.”
The rest, as they say, is history and as the class of 2007 now set out to emulate the feats of their predecessors of 20 years ago, Kirwan will also be focusing on the big prize, albeit this time as coach of Japan.
To say that the mazy run “went well” was an understatement. Italian would-be tacklers grasped at thin air as Kirwan registered one of the defining moments in early Rugby World Cup history.
He ended as the tournament's joint leading try scorer, but of all six scores, that one sticks in the memory.
“When we talk about emotion and when we talk about the excitement of playing sport at this level ... I think it was the emotion that I felt that day, just the inner strength and the will to really want to play rugby, to really demonstrate that I had something to offer,” Kirwan added.
“And so when I think back to that try it’s just an incredible feeling of strength and confidence, which I try and call on when I’m under pressure or things aren’t going so well.
“When you express yourself in whatever you do, you feel an inner strength and an inner joy. And that day I’ll always remember taking off. I don’t really remember too much about the action, but when I got there and stood up, just the incredible strength, internal strength that I felt. I felt that I could beat the world and that’s a lovely feeling to have.”
Playing to their talents
New Zealand’s victory in that first Rugby World Cup, though, was not just down to the magic of Kirwan; under coach Brian Lochore they had played a modern brand of rugby that was exciting and ruthlessly effective.
“We realised we didn’t have forwards that were big enough to take control of some of the big nations of the world who had bigger forwards than us,” Lochore recalled. “But we had athletic forwards and forwards with brilliant skills.
“So we set out to make the game as wide as possible – I remember talking to the forwards and saying ‘will you run to the breakdowns at the wings?’ They said 'yes' and I said ‘right, well that’s where we’re going to play it.”
The rest, as they say, is history and as the class of 2007 now set out to emulate the feats of their predecessors of 20 years ago, Kirwan will also be focusing on the big prize, albeit this time as coach of Japan.