Morné du Plessis is one of the leading figures in South African rugby history. His father, Felix, captained the Springboks against New Zealand in 1949, and Morné repeated the feat in 1976. He captained the Boks against the British Lions in 1980, avenging the defeat of 1974, and his international career stretched from 1971 to 1980, encompassing 22 Tests, including 15 as captain. He was manager of the South African World Cup-winning team in 1995 and co-founded the Sport Science Institute of South Africa, where he still works.
As one of South Africa's most famous captains, what do you think are the keys to being a good leader?
"I have been asked over the years to do a few talks on leadership and it continually comes down to the old question: 'Are leaders born or are they made?' I lean towards the fact that captains are helped into leadership roles by the situation and by the people that surround them. Good leaders in one situation might not make good leaders in another situation. Good leaders don't need to have a good education - there are good leaders in the ganglands of the Western Cape.
"The main things are consistency, the ability to change and adapt the ability to listen and to lead by example. And if you are not going to be honest, you will be found out by the team and by the guys that follow you. The greatest leader in the world in my time would be Nelson Mandela. It comes, again, to leading from the front and consistency of belief in the cause and not wavering from that."
So, with that in mind, who are the greatest leaders you have seen in your rugby life?
"I have been enormously impressed by John Smit's career as captain. When he was John Smit, he was always John Smit. François Pienaar was inspirational. He had the same asset of believing in the cause totally. He was able to instil that belief into the players and he led from the front in aspects of leadership. He was excellent and Smit followed up on that - that is why those guys were so great.
"Willie John McBride would have been the most revered captain, but he was almost a father figure to the team and it was a different era. I didn't play under him, I played against him, but he would have treated every player in the team equally. There would have always been an open door and all his players would have felt comfortable."
How has the role of captaincy changed since you were playing? Is it an easier job now?
"In 1976 and 1977 I coached Western Province while playing for them in the Currie Cup because we did not have a coach. Danie Craven was a great leader and he thought the captain was in a position to coach the team. But for two years, coaching and captaining the side was not a great experience, because you turn towards yourself, and as a loose forward I turned towards the loose-forward play. Now teams have a scrum coach, kicking coach, defence coach, attacking coach, coaches for everything. Then you have coaches in the box shouting instructions to the physio. But in the heat of battle, the captain still has to be a leader, and that is why the captain is still important."
When did you realise that rugby was so important to South Africans?
"It was always there in my family. My mother was a Springbok hockey captain and my father was a Springbok rugby captain. He was very supportive, but very hands-off in my career. He would have seen me play my first rugby match when I was at university, and because he was a Springbok, he did not want to put pressure on me.
"But I used to see that people knew him in the street or at our local rugby club. I would travel with him to the Wanderers cricket ground for the Boxing Day Test and you would see that people knew who he was.
"Rugby has always been big in this country, but it is not something that dawns on you, it has always been there. It is there when you are playing with your mates on the field and it is there when you go to school. I went to Grey College in Bloemfontein, which in those days was the biggest rugby school in the world, and there were 100 people who could have played for South Africa. You got put into your place there quite quickly. But soccer is the biggest sport in this country. Let's not forget that not everybody is totally passionate about the game. But they still know who the Springboks are. Rugby is part of our history and part of who we are."
When you played against New Zealand, did it always seem like you were playing for the unofficial World Championship?
"Yes, and that came through the history of some epic competition with New Zealand. They are two small countries fighting for their place in the world and we are good at punching above our national weight. They have been the leaders in world rugby and have been for the decades since the game began, and we thought we would be champions if we won. But we had epic battles with France, the British Lions, and when we played against Wales at the old Cardiff Arms Park - that really was a special place."
When the British Lions came over in 1980 was there much talk of revenge for what had happened to the Boks in 1974, when you lost the series 0-3 with one Test drawn?
"1974 hurt our national pride more than any other sporting event. We were beaten, and we knew we were beaten by a better team. We did not believe it could happen. We made some really big errors changing the team in every Test, but they were one of the best teams that ever toured here, if not one of the best teams ever. We would have struggled to win any of the Tests and we kept playing with new patterns and a new set of players, so it just went from bad to worse. So we were hurting very badly.
"We had not had much rugby between 1974 and 1980, just a sprinkling of Test matches, so we wanted to show the world we were to be reckoned with. Another loss would have been a disaster. The Lions had to make changes because of injuries, and that was the difference between the two series. We played 18 guys in the four Tests and the Lions would have played 33 or 34, like we did in 1974."
What are your memories of the 1995 World Cup final when the whistle finally went at the end?
"I was involved almost by accident, but to be a part of that time in our country, well, it was more than rugby. Rugby was being played, but there was a bigger game taking place in our nation. At the end of the game the feelings were disbelief that rugby could have come so far in such a short time and unite the country, even if it was just for then.
"There was a miracle taking place in front of us and I just didn't believe it at the time. Edward Griffiths, the CEO of the South African Rugby Union, was standing next to me in the tunnel as it was all unfolding, and the players were hugging each other. He said to me: 'Things will never be the same again in rugby', which I thought was a strange thing to say, but he was right.
"It was the start of the professional era, and we had the battle for rugby between Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch. But for that moment it was amazing. In my office I recently pulled out a poster that Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon have signed from the film Invictus. To know that story will be told forever is incredible."