Mark Andrews, the young South African lock, is the new rugby sensation
RUGBY: Barney Spender
HE has only played one test, against England and Newlands last month, but 22-year-old lock Mark Andrews is already being touted as the hottest thing to come off the conveyor belt of South African rugby talent, a potential matchwinner against the All Blacks in the first test in Dunedin tomorrow.
And he is also having to live with the kind of notices which kept The Mousetrap running in London for more than 30 years.
“In my opinion he is progressing towards becoming the best front-end ball winner in world rugby,” says South African team manager Jannie Engelbrecht.
“His ability is beyond doubt and I have hardly every seen him deflecting in the line-out. He always looks to take the ball with two hands, always looking for control _ and he’s a fine all-round player as well.”
National coach Ian McIntosh, who first noticed Andrews’ potential when he slipped into the Natal under-20 side while on holiday in the province, agrees with Engelbrecht.
“He’s got all the ability to become one of the great players. It’s a question of experience now. At the moment he’s a junior among seniors but when he becomes a senior as well he could be truly outstanding.”
High praise indeed for a social sciences student who is playing test rugby just over a year after making his first appearance in the black and white of Natal.
“It’s hard to believe it’s all happened so quickly,” says Andrews. “I come from a small town, Elliot, in the Eastern Cape and I’m the first Springbok to come from there so that’s quite a thing. But it’s hard to fathom the actual reality of playing for the Springboks.”
The Mark Andrews story goes all the way back to Elliot where, inspired by two rugby-playing brothers, Gary and Murray, and cousin Keith, he first got into the game and at the age of six started playing for an under-nine side.
At Selborne College he was in the rugby teams all the way up and followed his brothers and cousin as captain of the first XV. Indeed the Andrews family rather dominated rugby at Selborne at the time. When Mark was in Standard One he was captain of the youngest team while cousin Keith, the current South African tighthead prop, was skippering the firsts. A place in the South African Schools side in 1990 was inevitable.
“It was always a family joke that one day I would play with Keith or against Keith and now it’s come true. Last year I played against him for Natal against Western Province and then I played with him for the Boks in Argentina,” he says.
Unfortunately a hand injury picked up by Keith last Saturday has denied the cousins a chance of packing down together in a test for the first time in Dunedin, but it might happen before too long.
“Keith’s a very positive oke and has been a calming influence,” says Mark. “When I first played for Natal I thought the whole world was coming down on me in pressure but the way he saw it I was a young guy and I’d got a break. He turned it round and made it seem a positive thing rather than a negative thing.”
Apart from his role as mentor, Keith has contributed a fair amount to Mark’s rugby education by fixing him up with the French club Aurillac for a year.
“I was supposed to be 21 but I was only 19 so we lied and there was a huge rumpus when they found out. But I played and scored a try in my first game and started winning them line- out ball they hadn’t had, so they were quite happy and let me stay.”
Keith is in no doubt that Mark’s year in France was the making of him. “It did him the world of good,” he says. “He was a tight forward and he learnt a lot about the French type of the game. And I think it turned him into a man. Once he came back you could see the difference and he hasn’t looked back.”
At the start of the 1993 season McIntosh included him in Natal’s pre-season squad. Then, with Andrews having just made his way into the side, McIntosh left the province to take over the national side, handing over the reins at King’s Park to the former Transvaal coach Harry Viljoen.
“Harry is an incredible guy and probably the reason why I am a Springbok today. I had set myself a goal of being in the team by the time I was 24 but he gave me the belief to make it before then. So much of sport is about confidence and Harry always gave me a boost. he taught me as much about the game as anyone,” says Mark.
“In one of his first team talks he put up on a board 98 with a line through it and a two beside it and said `98 percent of the world is ruled by two percent and in rugby it’s the same _ you’ve got to be among those two’. That was his whole approach, simply that you’ve got to be the best. I always remember that.”
Viljoen quit at the end of the season but Andrews had impressed enough to be chosen for the South African tour of Argentina _ as a flanker.
Engelbrecht recently described the experiment as a “disaster” while Andrews admits that although he tried hard he simply was not in tune mentally with the switch of position.
His elevation to the test team as a lock was only a matter of time and when it came against England he was outstanding _ providing South Africa with a steady supply of good-quality possession from the line-out.
Now he is in New Zealand looking to add to his experience and put himself in line for further tests against Argentina at home, then the tour to Wales and Scotland before the big attraction of the World Cup to be held in South Africa next year.
There is talk of his leadership potential and many see him as a future South African captain. Natal has already recognised this by putting him in charge for a game against Eastern Transvaal earlier this season. Some might wonder if he suffers from a swollen head but at the moment that could not be further from the truth.
“My old man always tells me `keep your feet on the ground; you had a good game but keep your feet on the ground’ and I think that’s right. Perhaps when you’ve retired it’s possible to look back at your career and say `well, maybe I was the greatest’ but you can’t afford to do that when you’re still playing.”
Andrews is still a long way from retirement _ but as far as keeping his feet on the ground? When he lines up opposite Ian Jones at the front of the line-outs tomorrow his teammates, and the whole of South Africa, will be hoping that it is the last thing on his mind.