Former All Blacks head coach Laurie Mains refuses to watch the award-winning movie \u2018Invictus\u2019 as he believes it to be a \u2018twisted\u2019 version of events.<\/b><\/p>\n
The story follows Nelson Mandela\u2019s journey through the 1995 Rugby World Cup and the role it played in uniting an Apartheid-torn South Africa.<\/p>\n
Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon were cast as the lead actors in the movie, portraying Mandela and Bok captain Francois Pienaar, respectively.<\/p>\n
Mains refuses to watch Invictus<\/p>\n
Heading into the tournament, hosts South Africa<\/a> were underdogs and were largely written off as title contenders, having spent much of the years in the build-up to the World Cup<\/a> in sporting exile.<\/p>\n However, the Boks upset the odds and reached the final where they tackled their old foe, the All Blacks<\/a>, in the final, who were coached by Mains<\/a>.<\/p>\n 80 minutes couldn\u2019t separate the teams, who were tied at nine points apiece, meaning the game went into extra time. Fly-half Joel Stranksy nailed a match-winning drop goal to seal a 15-12 victory and clinch their first World Cup title, doing so on their first attempt.<\/p>\n While the tournament and Boks feature prominently in the film, it is more centred around the racial and political challenges South Africa faced at the time.<\/p>\n However, it did not touch on Mains\u2019 real gripe from the final, as he believes that his squad was poisoned by a mysterious waitress named Suzie on the Thursday before the match. A stance that he maintains to this day.<\/p>\n In an interview with Dom Harvey, the former coach said that he has not and will not watch film.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t seen it,\u201d he replied when asked if he was happy with the actor cast to depict him.<\/p>\n \u201cI would have had trouble believing that it was a true account of what happened, so I didn\u2019t want to get infuriated by going to see someone\u2019s twisted version.\u201d<\/p>\n In the interview, the 79-year-old also addressed his strained relationship with Rassie Erasmus, who he coached at the Cats, and revealed that he hired a private detective to investigate his suspicions of foul play before the 1995 final.<\/p>\n