Silver fox finishes off the Halloween horror show

Brendan Gallagher delves into some of rugby’s most enduring images, their story and why they are still so impactful

What’s happening here?

It’s Sunday October 31, 1999 at Twickenham and Halloween’s night is proving an absolute nightmare for New Zealand. It’s the 74th minute and France wing Philippe Bernat-Salles has pounced for his side’s fourth try as they complete a remarkable turnaround to win their World Cup semi-final against the All Blacks.

Having touched down, the Biarritz wing shouts in happiness and exultation, it’s all over, the game is won, the miracle is complete. Christophe Lamasion’s conversion made the score 43-24 and although Jeff Wilson grabbed a late consolation try Les Bleus finished as sensation 43-31 winners.

What’s is the story behind the picture?

Still, to this day, the greatest World Cup game in history and a comeback that nobody saw coming. You just don’t come back from 24-10 against a rampaging All Blacks side, especially as New Zealand had been playing so well up to that point with big Jonah, always at his best at Twickenham, scoring two belting tries.

France had gone into the game as big underdogs – they had after all finished bottom of the 1999 Five Nations – but possibly the bookies for once had got that a little wrong. New Zealand had made rather hard work of beating

“The wide-eyed joy and sudden realisation that France had pulled off a miracle”

Scotland 30-18 in their quarter-final at Murrayfield while France had finally found their best and most fluent form in beating Argentina 47-26, an Argentina team that didn’t go easily. I reported on that cracking game at Lansdowne Road and you could sense something brewing from Les Bleus.

They had a big performance in them but would it be enough to beat New Zealand?

What happened next?

As we all know Les Blues only went and scored 33 unanswered points to unpick New Zealand in a manner nobody had witnessed before as they came back from that 24-10 deficit.

There were heroes everywhere. The mercurial but inspired Christophe Dominici; the cool assassin that was Lamaison, the combative Richard Dourthe, the warrior-like Abdelatif Benazzi, the mountainous Fabian Pelous and Raphael Ibanez, and of course the flamboyant Bernat-Salles.

Why is the picture iconic?

What is there not to love about his picture? The wide-eyed joy and sudden realisation that France had pulled off a miracle.There were 70,000 at Twickenham that day and if you discount the 10,000 French fans and about 8,000 Kiwis the rest were mainly Brits cheering madly for France. It was a surreal scene.

There are other components of this picture to enjoy, not least the almost macabre right hand of Wilson still fighting for the ball. Wilson was just about the only Kiwi who stood tall in the middle of this extraordinary half as everybody around him went AWOL and indeed it was he who kept going and scored a consolation try a few minutes later to end the run of 33 unanswered points.

This is also still, just about, in the era of ‘proper’ cotton rugby shirts and it’s strangely pleasing as well as nostalgic to see the folds and even still a few surviving iron creases rather than the horrible drum skins we see these days stretched over taught – sometimes not quite so taught – torsos.

Bernat-Salles – the old silver fox himself although he is actually only 29 in this picture – was the archetypal French playboy with his blond but greying mane and off the pitch was normally enveloped in a cloud of Guaillise smoke and surrounded by a posse of admiring female fans.

He was also a seriously good rugby player and enjoyed a long and successful career with Pau, Bordeaux Begles and possibly most notably with Biarritz. He represented France for a decade without ever absolutely nailing down his place on the wing although a total of 26 tries in 41 Tests would suggest that was more of an oversight from successive France coaches than anything.

Footnote: Bernat-Salles remains a glamorous figure, a TV pundit who loves motor sport and has competed in the Paris-Dakar rally, owns and runs a camp site in Labenne-Ocean and is a former president of the French handball league.