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Former Springbok lock Kobus Wiese has spoken about being punched by All Blacks counterpart Ian Jones at the end of the 1995 World Cup final.

An eagle-eyed South African photographer, Thys Lombard, spotted the incident that took place from a scrum moments before the final whistle blew at Ellis Park.

Did you ever notice what happened to @4KobusWiese at the end of the 1995 World Cup final? pic.twitter.com/EBHrt0ai6o — RugbyRocks.com (@rugby_rocks) April 14, 2020

In an interview with Jacques Henning (aka The Yellow Cap) on Tuesday, Wiese explained what happened.

‘It’s part of the game,’ began the 55-year-old, who had been reluctant to talk about it.

‘You remember the [former Bok prop] Johan le Roux incident in New Zealand with [All Blacks hooker] Sean Fitzpatrick [in 1994] when unfortunately they didn’t feed Johan well enough so he nibbled on Sean’s ear. People saw it differently unfortunately and “Joe” was suspended for a couple of weeks.’

Le Roux, in fact, received a massive 19-month ban.

‘Joe was also playing [with me] for Transvaal – the Lions,’ Wiese added. ‘He was one of the hard men of rugby, he could take it on the chin and also dish it out. He’s also a great guy and a really good person.

‘I promised Joe that if there was ever a chance for payback, one of us – his teammates – would oblige. And we’ll leave that there for technical and legal reasons!

‘In that last scrum, we paid back the dues for Joe and clearly Jonesy was a bit frustrated as well because he knew it was all over and he started punching.

‘But I didn’t mind, I took it on the chin, because we had paid back the favour and it was all in good spirit. We had a cold one – a lemonade – afterwards and we are friends to this day.’