[imagesource: Tertius Pickard]

Yesterday, South Africa lost another world champion.

James Small’s passing makes him the fourth member of the 1995 World Cup-winning squad to pass away, along with coach Kitch Christie, flanker Ruben Kruger, and scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen.

Since the news broke, there have been many tributes written about the man often referred to as South African rugby’s bad boy. Over on TimesLIVE, they dubbed him “the James Dean of Springbok rugby”, adding that he was a “rebel with a cause”:

That same article recounts these stories:

Former Golden Lions chief executive Johan Prinsloo often referred to the days when the Transvaal team of the early 1990s went as hard off the field as on it. “I used to get calls from station commanders early on a Sunday morning. All they’d say is: ‘Meneer, jy moet nou die manne kom haal’ (Sir, you better collect these guys immediately).”

His altercation with a wave skier in perhaps the appropriately named Barney’s Tavern in Port Elizabeth brought unwanted attention in 1994.

Well, it all seemed to prepare him for the mammoth task that awaited him in 1995, when he was tasked with taking down the man mountain that was Jonah Lomu.

Aged just 20, Lomu stood 1,98m tall and weighed 120kg, having run the 100m in 10,8 seconds while still a schoolboy.

To get a sense of what an outlier he was, take a look at these stats below:

Having run riot during the semi-final against England, scoring four tries and flattening Mike Catt and a number of other defenders, South Africans feared the worst ahead of the showdown at Ellis Park.

With some help from the likes of Japie Mulder and Joost van der Westhuizen, the 1,85m, 88kg Small marked Lomu out of the game.

Unfortunately, video of Small’s tackle on Lomu from the 1995 World Cup final is hard to come by, so this iconic picture will have to suffice:

We did find this video, from the 1996 Super 12 Final between the Auckland Blues and the Natal Sharks.

Back when people used to care about Super Rugby:

It never mattered how you took him down, as long as you took him down.

To finish, here’s a collection of some of his best tries over the years:

Thanks for all the memories, James.

[source:timeslive]