The Battle of Tucuman

When the 1993 Sprinboks’ bus pulled up outside the Argentinian club, Tucuman, there was already a distinct element of malevolence in the air. As tighthead prop Keith Andrews sat in his window seat before alighting the vehicle, a small boy in the street called up to him, “Señor! Señor!” while confidently brandishing a middle finger.  

The players ran out onto the field to the thunderous chant from the crowd of “Ooh! Aah! Tu-cu-man!” Springbok manager Jannie Engelbrecht recalls:

“We had been forewarned on our trip to Australia and New Zealand...they warned us that coming out to Tucuman was no holiday. The way they play...not within the rules, it’s not acceptable to me at all.”

The club is located in North-West of Buenos Aires in a city called San Miguel de Tucuman and was founded in 1942 by the employees of the Bank of London branch in the city.

It was widely accepted before the game got underway that Tucuman had little-to-no chance of beating the mighty Springboks. However, as the game transpired, it became apparent that their goal was actually to soften the men in green up before the remainder of their tests against the national side. This intention manifested itself from the first scrum, which broke up after a dominant shove by the Springboks, and the fists flew.

“We had to fight fire with fire. They kept on kicking us...kept on headbutting us so, we had to give it back to them.” said Springbok captain, Tiaan Strauss.

The referee that evening had the unenviable task of trying control the game and spoke vigorously to the two captains after the first brawl, but, alas, his efforts were in vain, and the game descended into a bloody circus of violence, with neither side standing back for their opponents. 

The Boks ran out victors by 40-12 but the score in this game reamins an after-thought to this day.

Keith Andrews, who, despite a squeaky-clean disciplinary record up until that date, received his marching orders after knocking out the Tucuman number 8, recalls:

"Once I'd been sent off, we were sitting in the enclosure on sort of like, benches, and we didn't realise that these Argentinian spectators were spitting on us...and when we got back into the change-room there were nice pizzas on our backs; blue, yellow, green..." he chuckled.

The match had drifted so far into the realm of the ridiculous that Tucuman received a two-year ban afterwards.