Sir Bryan 'Beegee' Williams may be almost 40 years removed from when he last laced up his boots, but he's clearly lost little of the sharpness that made him one of the All Blacks' most iconic players.
Reflecting on what the All Blacks' hallowed rivalry with the Springboks means to both rugby and New Zealand on the eve of their 100th test battle, the 70-year-old reels off a chronological history of NZ-South Africa tours, as if he were reading them off a list in front of him.
The last 99 tests have produced some of the most unforgettable moments in rugby history, but the tale of the two nations can't be told without recognising the political context.
That's a subject that Sir Bryan - once a powerful wing with revolutionary flair - is uniquely placed to comment on.
In 1970, he made his test debut on an All Blacks tour to South Africa during the thick of the apartheid era, when the proud Samoan succeeded where many of his Polynesian predecessors had failed to enter the country.
"As you can imagine, I was only 19 years old and I was absolutely terrified," Sir Bryan tells Newshub.
"Then being one of the first players of coloured blood to be allowed to tour apartheid South Africa was doubly daunting."
To gain entry, Williams had to be granted 'honorary white status' by South African immigration, a notion he still can't help but shake his head at.
"It was nonsense, that's what it was," he states. "The apartheid system felt that it needed to give us players of coloured blood some sort of designation to supposedly justify their warped system.
“I knew who I was and I knew who I was representing, and I know the Māori boys felt the same way.
"Many of the Māori boys had been denied that opportunity, going back through the ages. Some of the great Māori players of all time - George Nepia, Johnny Smith, many others who should have gone, but never got that opportunity.
"I felt that, to be able to go to South Africa and represent my heritage and people of dark skin, was a higher cause."
Fortunately for Sir Bryan, his All Black status was enough for white rugby-mad South Africans to overlook the colour of his skin, while he also became an adopted hero of the local black and coloured communities, who took him "into their hearts".
But after one of the early wins on that tour, he experienced first-hand the brutal reality of life in a racially divided society, as locals in a segregated crowd attempted to celebrate their newfound idol.
"Some of the coloured community put me up on their shoulders and carried me around, and some white guys took exception to that and started attacking them, and dragged me down.
"Fortunately, some police came along and escorted me back to the changing room, but it was quite scary at the time."
Six years later, during the 1976 tour, Williams found himself back in the thick of the political turmoil, when - as he left a left a book-signing in downtown Cape Town - he inadvertently stumbled into the path of police firing tear gas during an anti-apartheid protest.
"Suddenly, all hell broke loose," he recalls. "Someone said ‘run to the right’ and we ran straight into a tear gas canister.
‘We then made our way to a police vehicle and knocked on the door. Our eyes were streaming and we could hardly breathe."
After playing their All Blacks card, Williams and his teammates eventually convinced local police to provide them shelter from the escalating chaos.
"It was actually three days before the third test at Newlands and, of course, I was pretty shaken up. It brought home to us just how warped a society it was."
Those protests were part of a global anti-apartheid movement that was quickly gathering steam, which culminated the next time the two sides met on the infamous Springboks tour to New Zealand in 1981, where politics and sport collided in an ugly, but - according to Williams - necessary head.
"It was a very difficult time for New Zealand," he notes. "Obviously, there was a lot of protest going on and rightfully so.
“Apartheid needed to be brought to account.
"Unfortunately, New Zealanders ended up fighting each other in the street. Some felt that politics should not come into sport and the All Blacks should be able to play whoever, and some disagreed with that."
The public discontent reached its crescendo during the fourth test at Eden Park, when protesters hired a plane, and dropped flour bombs and flares on the ground during the game, one of which felled All Blacks prop Gary Knight, while riots raged outside the stadium.
Williams - who had played his final test in 1978 - and biographer Bob Hewitt had embarked on a tour to promote their new book, with stops scheduled to coincide with the three test matches.
In hindsight, he admits it may not have been the wisest decision.
"I'd be sitting in a bookstore somewhere, signing a book, and someone would come in and say 'you dirty racist bastard'," he laughs.
But as much as those events left the country divided and now live on in infamy, Williams believes they provided a timely wake-up call for both the Springboks players and those watching back home in South Africa.
"It created a scenario where people just realised things had to change and I think the South Africans themselves saw what was happening in our country.
"I've got to say the protests were justified, no question."
That tour tarnished relations between the two sides for several years, until the release of Nelson Mandela from jail, the resulting abolishment of apartheid and the advent of professional rugby helped close the chapter on that dark past.
Two-plus decades of classic test-match rugby have also helped bury that hatchet and Williams - a trailblazer for Pasifika players in Aotearoa - is heartened to see the evolution of the Springboks, exemplified by talismanic captain Siya Kolisi, who led them to 2019 World Cup glory.
"To see a number of coloured players in the ‘Boks team, it's been great to see that transformation.
"[New Zealand v South Africa] is the greatest rugby rivalry the world has ever seen, and even though it's been dogged by all the controversy that's gone on with apartheid and so many other famous episodes during those series, it's something to cherish, really."
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