A nice old Blue Bull story. Hero Lourens turns 86.

One of only two surviving members of the 1946 Currie Cup winning Northern Transvaal team, Johnny Lourens, turned 86 on Monday, August 9th 2010.
Lourens was the big hero at Loftus Versfeld on September 28th, 1946 when he scored the winning try in the Currie Cup final between Northern Transvaal and Western Province in the dying seconds of the match. With that try he became a legend in this proud province, as his try secured a first ever Currie Cup for the union. He remembered the try well, he told Sarel Sarel van der Walt from Beeld.

“I remember the match well. It was late in the second half and we were in our own 25. There was a line-out and just before Daan Retief (former Springbok flank who played on the wing that day) threw the ball into the line-out, our captain, Hansie Brewis asked the referee about the time left.

“He said one minute. Daan threw in; Fiks van der Merwe (Springbok flanker) won the ball and passed it to Hansie (Brewis).

“Hansie kicked the ball and as soon as he did, I started to chase,” the former right wing recalled. “The ball landed near the WP 25 and fullback Con de Kock tried to kick it into touch. “Instead, he kicked it straight to me and I ran in for the try. There was chaos at Loftus as we won 11-9.” Lourens was 22 at the time.

“There was more than 40 000 spectators at the game and people camped outside for tickets. We still played in powder blue jerseys without the daisy. Very few people knew, but the final was suppose to be in Cape Town, but was moved to Pretoria after the Northern Transvaal Rugby Union offered to bring the WP team north on the Blue Train (luxury train).

“The poor Con went back to Cape Town on his own and not with his team mates. He never played again,” the former Tukkies player remembered. He played for Northern Transvaal from 1944-1952 and later worked for National Intelligence. “In 1983, while I was on duty in Cape Town, I bumped into Con. We had coffee, but did not talk about rugby!” Happy birthday Oom Johnny and thank you for that that try!