Peter Jackson: This farewell to a Bok hero was fit for a king

They carried his oak coffin out of Loftus Versveld a few minutes before three o’clock on Friday afternoon at the end of a funeral fit for a king.
Even in death, on his final journey out of arguably the most sacred of all Springbok shrines, Joost van der Westhuizen kept raising the bar. No rugby player has ever been granted a state funeral but none came closer to one than the scrum-half who, more than anyone, gave Nelson Mandela the excuse to be jigging for joy at the end of the 1995 World Cup final.
Whether his successor had Madibah’s soft-shoe shuffle in mind or not, President Jacob Zuma elevated the occasion to one of national importance. He declared it a Provincial Official Funeral, in South African protocol two rungs down from a state funeral reserved for presidents or presidents-elect.
There were times during the three-hour memorial service, screened live across the Rainbow Nation, when emotion blurred the boundaries and it looked as though Joost had been given one.  Flags in his native Pretoria and beyond into the whole of Gauteng were flown at half-mast by presidential decree.
It was as if the whole country had stopped to give him a national salute.   So many, from heads of the army and police to government ministers, lined up in front of the coffin to pay their respects that it seemed as if the queue would never end.
If the recurring references to unfailing courage on the field, of his battle and indomitable spirit, made it sound as though an old Zulu warlord was being laid to rest, then they got it absolutely right, except that they were saying farewell to a young warrior, one killed in his prime by an illness of unspeakable cruelty.
Before motor neurone disease ravaged his body, nobody ever doubted Joost’s capacity for gallantry above and beyond the call of duty.    It blazed out from piercing eyes, a defiance reinforced by the cocksure conviction that when push came to shove, he would fight to the death.
In doing so, literally against an affliction so horrendous that it leaves the mind trapped inside a crumbling body, his friends believed that lesser mortals could not possibly have kept going for as long as he did, more than five years from diagnosis to death.   Edward Griffiths, former SARU chief executive and, more recently, a driving force behind Saracens, said: “Only Joost could have done that.”
When he first clapped eyes on Loftus Versveld as a small boy, nobody could have imagined that it would end like this.  Not a fortnight before what would have been his 46th birthday, not the most indestructible of Die Bokke who defied the odds to beat the All Blacks at Ellis Park in the first extra-time World Cup final.
Joost was carried into Loftus for the last time on a day warm even by the standards of the high veldt, when some hoisted umbrellas against the baking sun, by his old team-mates, some a little thinner on top, others a little broader around the waist. Francois Pienaar, as always, rose to the occasion as speaker after speaker paid tribute from a shaded podium on the halfway line.
“Joost now belongs to an exclusive club,” he told the mourners in their serried ranks of Springbok green and gold and the sky blue of the Blue Bulls. “He has become a legend not once in his life-time, but twice.”
His bravery as a player, never better illustrated than by stopping a careering Jonah Lomu three times during the 1995 final, was one thing.   His refusal to succumb to MND, the foundation which he launched in his name to help others similarly afflicted, won him legions of new friends across the globe.
Former Lions captain Bill Beaumont, given a rousing hand for making the trip in his capacity as chairman of World Rugby, said: “I think Joost van der Westhuizen invented the modern scrum-half.   Not only was he extremely competitive and skillful, he set the benchmark in every aspect of his game.”
Joost would have liked that.    Thankfully, nobody on Friday went as far as beatifying him as a saint. At the zenith of his career during those ten glorious years on the big stage, he could be difficult and there were times when his life went off the rails, when his private life became engulfed by scandal.
That, as one of his friends put it to me the other day, was when ‘the fame and the money went to his head’.
The singer Amor Vittone, on crutches after breaking her left ankle, spoke during the service of the romance behind her becoming his second wife.  By the time they parted six years later, the couple had two children, Kylie, now 9, and Jordan, 11.
“For a while I was lucky to be part of a fairytale,” Amor said from the stage, wiping the tears from her eyes.  “Unfortunately, our fairytale encountered some challenges and we separated.
“We knew this day was coming but nothing prepares you for the reality.   Joost loved the kids and only last Christmas he gave them a bible each.  I won’t deny that I’m scared as I face the huge task of raising the children alone but as Jordan, being a Liverpool supporter would say, you never walk alone…”
After three hours when every detail had been attended to, right down to the release of the doves from their baskets, his family placed single carnations on the lid of the coffin, so many that they almost ran out of room to put them.
In his pomp, Joost had known many salutes but never one to compare with this.   How fitting that his last visit out in the middle of his home from home should be the longest one of all.