Former All Blacks halfback Dave Loveridge still chuckles over the bizarre events of that game more than 40 years ago that became known as the 'Flour Bomb Test'.
"It's obviously history now, but I can still remember most of it, even though I did get knocked out," Loveridge tells Newshub.
September 12, 1981, marked the climax of an infamous chapter in New Zealand sporting and political history, after Prime Minister Rob Muldoon allowed the South African rugby team to tour, despite international and local protests over that nation's ongoing apartheid regime.
For decades, the intense onfield rivalry had played out against a backdrop of outrage over the republic's policies on racial segregation, most notably at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where African nations boycotted in protest of the All Blacks tour to South Africa that year.
The following year, New Zealand joined other Commonwealth countries in signing the Gleneagles Agreement to discourage sporting contact with South Africa, but four years later, Muldoon insisted that politics and sport should mix, and consented to the tumultuous Springboks tour.
"Some of the guys didn't play, but from a rugby point of view, we just wanted to play rugby against one of the best teams in the world," says Loveridge. "None of us were pro apartheid, but it was certainly challenging."
Several matches on that tour were disrupted and the provincial match against Waikato was cancelled, after protestors spread glass on the Rugby Park pitch.
The first test at Christchurch was also delayed by protestors, but by the time the two teams arrived in Auckland, the country was whipped into a frenzy of for and against.
Hordes roamed the streams around Eden Park, met by squads of police armed with shields and long batons.
"We were staying at a hotel on the North Shore, and we left about 8-9 o'clock in the morning and went to the ground," recalls Loveridge. "I think the South African team were staying on one side and they put us in a big lounge on the other side - we had mattresses there to lie down on.
"The games were enjoyable, but with everything else going on, it was pretty tough on everyone."
During that closefought battle, a low-flying Cessna, piloted by Marx Jones and Grant Cole, swooped over the field, dropping anti-tour literature, flares and flour bombs, one of which knocked All Blacks prop Gary Knight off his feet.
"We'd never experienced anything like that," says Loveridge. "There was a game in Fiji the year before, where the ground got invaded after a bit of a scrap and the crowd came on, and we got escorted off.
"With the flour bombs and the plane, it was quite scary.
"Gary Knight was standing right beside me and Alan Hewson was there too. I saw the bomb coming and pushed Hewie out of the road, and said 'duck'.
"Gary Knight - Axle - had been duckshooting the week before and looked up, and got hit by the flour bomb. It wasn't funny at the time, but it was something that will never leave your memory."
Loveridge could be forgiven for some hazy recollections of the match's climax, after knocking himself out, trying to prevent a try in the corner by bruising Springbok centre Ray Mordt.
"They picked me up and were about to take me straight into the changing sheds, but I told them to wait, I wanted to see if the conversion goes over," he says. "Naas Botha missed it and I said 'you can take me in now'.
"They took me in there, left me on a stretcher and disappeared. A few minutes later, our manager came in and said 'Hewie's having a shot at goal', and then ran out again.
"I was lying there and heard this enormous roar, and thought 'he must have it'. The manager ran back in and said 'Hewie got it'."
New Zealand 25 South Africa 22.
That tour really hurt rugby's standing in New Zealand for several years and wasn't helped when the Cavaliers rebel team visited South Africa in 1986, but hosting the inaugural World Cup 12 months later seemed to galvanise the country behind its national game again.
Despite that chequered history, Loveridge is adamant the Springboks represent our biggest rivals on the world rugby stage over the past century.
"I was fortunate enough to play against the British Lions and any international is a great park to be on, but certainly South Africa have won three World Cups, as we have now.
"They are a rugby force and they're the team that you test yourself against over the years."
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