MY LIFEIN RUGBY
THE FORMER SPRINGBOKS, SWD EAGLES, PUMAS, BULLS, CATS, BOLAND, FREE STATE CHEETAHS, TREVISO, LEICESTER, LEEDS, WASPS AND SHARKS LOOSE FORWARD
HAD it not been for Heyneke Meyer offering me a pro contract out of school, I don't know if I would have gone on to enjoy the 19- year career I had. I was a skinny kid who didn't know if he was a flanker or lock when he signed me for the SWD Eagles.
After two years at the SWD, I moved to the Pumas who were based in Witbank, a tough mining community. It is one of those places where the grass dies in winter, and turns yellow. At one stage we had to paint the lines on the field in black so we could see them. There were a lot of older guys in the squad too, so it was a real eye-opener on a lot of levels but an invaluable period for me all the same.
I was 21 when I got my Super Rugby opportunity with the Bulls. Joost van der Westhuizen, one of my boyhood heroes, was our captain and it was amazing to get the chance to play overseas with some of my peers, people like Bakkies Botha and Victor Matfield. It wasn't a particularly successful period for the team but I got capped by the Springboks at the end of 2002, in defeats to France in Marseilles and Scotland at Murrayfield.
Corne Krige was captain and he is a great person but it was a tough tour as the squad wasn't settled at all. I left that tour thinking is this what playing for the Springboks is all about? It demotivated me. I then moved to the Free State Cheetahs and Cats Super Rugby after two years with the Bulls but, at 24, I was tired of rugby and had a host of injures. I was talking to Harlequins about going there and trying something new but then an opportunity to go to Italy came along through Franco Smith, who I knew from the Pumas and Free State.
One year at Treviso turned into three and I enjoyed many aspects of my time there, especially playing with Sergio Parisse, Alexandro Troncon and other Italian legends in a team that won by 40-50 points most weeks. But the lack of structure in the game was something I found hard to adjust to. Moving to Leicester was just what I needed. They are an English version of the Bulls in many ways, with how they approached the game and the quality of players they had as well as the passion for rugby in the city. Will Johnson, Martin's brother, was a teammate at Treviso and he said the Tigers were on the lookout for a lock. That Leicester squad is probably the best I played in, at one stage we had 28 internationals on board.
Leaving Leicester was a decision I look back on with some regret. I was wanting to run a lineout but with Ben Kay having just re-signed there wasn't an opportunity to do that. So when Neil Back offered me the chance at Leeds, I took it.
It was tough fighting relegation for two years. The writing was always on the wall. The club was in League country, they didn't have the crowds and then there was the budget issue where the Rhinos, the best club in the world at the time, had players on a lot less money than us at Leeds Carnegie, who were the worst team in the Premiership. I think the management always struggled to get their heads around that one, and I can understand why.
I'd only just re-signed on a twoyear contract and was fully prepared to try and help get the club back up again but with doubts being raised about budgets and a lot of players moving on, it felt like a backward move for my career at a time when I was still very ambitious, so I followed Steve Thompson to Wasps.
Crippled by injuries and money problems – half the players didn't get paid their monthly salary on the eve of an away game at Exeter one December – we struggled badly. Like at Leeds, I was captain and I thought, ‘here we go again, I've seen this movie before'. Relegation was a very real possibility, right up until the last game of the season against Newcastle. That said, I did enjoy my time at Wasps being coached by Dai Young, who is not only a very good coach but also a great bloke with a good sense of humour. His knowledge of the game was multi-layered, his focus wasn't just on the forwards.
While I was at Wasps, Heyneke – who I also briefly worked with at Leicester – had become Springboks coach and he called me up to see if I'd be interested in joining up with them for a training camp because they'd been beset by injuries. It would have been great to have got the chance to add to my two caps ten years later but it never materialised and in retrospect, as captain of Wasps, I had an obligation to focus on getting us out of trouble.
After nine continuous years overseas, I returned to South Africa to be closer to family. At that point I had no intention of continuing to play but the chance to head to the coast and play for the Sharks was too good to turn down and I had three happy years there and got another Currie Cup winner's medal.
While at Wasps, I coached Oxford University and Ealing Trailfinders and was doing my Level 3 coaching badge, but I'm not involved in coaching any more. I'm chairman of Trans Hex Operations, a diamond mining company in Cape Town. Hopefully, it'll last forever!
