It's a scrum thing

As the scorer of one of the greatest tries by a prop forward in the annals of rugby Richard Bands is surprisingly unassuming – although this should hardly be unexpected from a man who said he was sorry when shown television footage of his thunderous hand-off on Carlos Spencer.

Bands' try from fully 46 metres against the All Blacks in Dunedin will, even if there should be a miracle over the next few weeks in Australia, remain as one of the highlights of the 2003 season.

My favourite moment was when Bands was shown a video replay of him sending Spencer flying head over heels and smashing through Aaron Mauger's despairing tackle to score a try that would have been right up there even it hadn’t been scored by a prop forward and all he could say was was: "Sorry".

Bands is the big success story of a difficult period for Springbok rugby. A year ago one wondered, to borrow a line from Welsh entertainer Max Boyce, who had broken the mould that made Springbok tighthead props and then along came Bands and, it must be said, also Faan Rautenbach.

It is typical of Bands that when he returned home he was quick to give credit to Joost van der Westhuizen for having directed him into the gap and also to point out that referee Peter Marshall might have played the role of a blocker.

But that is what you’d expect from a farm boy from the Western Transvaal outback who has taken a harder route than most to end up at RWC 2003.

In fact, Bands might have been lost to rugby altogether had it not been for the seed of conviction planted in his mind by an uncle who had said to him while he was at school, "you can be a Springbok".

That he achieved his dream is remarkable in a world of specialised training and youngsters whose careers are plotted every step of the way, for Bands played no rugby at all for a period of five years.

Springing from a farming community in the district of Lichtenburg in the Western Transvaal, he played at Craven Week in 1992 for the now defunct Stellaland. He had one game at senior level – at hooker for Stellaland against Eastern Free State in 1994 - but remembers the occasion as one in which "I got pretty roughed up because there were some tough farmers playing in those days."

At that point, after discussing his rugby career with his father Dick, he decided that trying to stay in the game at a higher level "was not worth the trouble" and he settled into the life of a cattle farmer; occasionally turning out, still at hooker, for the Mafeking team.

He picked up weight (at one stage tipping the scales at a massive 142 kg!) but the dream of playing at a higher level continued to flicker. "You begin to think, 'maybe I can do this.' I didn’t want to get old and wonder what could have been; or be bitter because I didn’t give rugby a proper go," he explains.

So late in 1998 Bands, revealing the wanderlust and fortitude of his Irish ancestors, decided to move to Bloemfontein for the sole purpose of getting the rugby bug out of his system. He joined the Old Greys club and, still as a hooker, won a couple of caps in the Free State 'B' squad.

"Those were tough times," he recalls. "I was working for an aircon installation company and earning just R700 a month and I also tried to sell short-term insurance. There were times I nearly packed it all in because as a 'boykie' from the country I was finding city life quite hard. It was my wife, Esta, who stood by me and pushed me through. I'm really very grateful to her and my family," says the father of two daughters and a son.

Free State did not offer Bands a contract for the 1999 season, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. At the instigation of a friend from the Lichtenburg district, former Blue Bulls scrumhalf Donovan Twiname (a man who sat on the bench for the Springboks in the series against the Cavaliers in 1986) he decided to try his luck in Pretoria and joined the Harlequins club.

In Pretoria he was signed up on a temporary contract with the Bulls for the 2000 season and saw duty for the province's second team who won their competition.

He had been noticed, but he was still in a queue behind some very accomplished hookers such as his current teammate Danie Coetzee. 2001 turned out to be a big year as he came into contact with Heyneke Meyer and it was the young coach who made the decision to switch him to tighthead in the Blue Bulls team that went on to win the Vodacom Cup.

Bands thus played his second first-class match fully seven years after his first and his relationship with Meyer provided the impetus that would carry him into the Springboks.

"I wanted to know where I was going and in a straight-forward one-on-one Heyneke let me know that he expected more from me. At that point I was a typical farm boy eating plenty of meat, rice and potatoes and Heyneke let me know straight out that he wanted me to be more dedicated, shed some weight and become fitter. I remember him saying that he couldn't back me if I didn't back myself," Bands recalls.

He took the coach's admonishments to heart and in 2002, when Piet Boer dropped out, he was able to step up to the Blue Bulls' Currie Cup side and turn himself into the cornerstone of a magnificent pack that laid the foundation for the Bulls winning the Currie Cup.

In 2003 Rudy Joubert included Bands in the Bulls' Super 12 squad and it was soon evident that he was a real find as he got the better of one opponent after another. In June he was given the green-and-gold No3 jersey against Scotland – making his debut in Durban – and that try at Carisbrook provided confirmation that he had come to stay.

He says the transition from hooker to prop was more difficult than one might appreciate. "I was always quite heavy for a hooker (he's now at a fighting weight of 118 kgs) but there's lots of technique involved in playing tighthead and every loosehead comes with his own tricks. The natural strength I built up on the farm, however, has stood me in good stead," he adds.

The one thing that rankles is his meeting with Os du Randt when the Springboks played Free State in a warm-up game and the Cheetahs, with Os in the vanguard, managed to put the Bok scrum into reverse.

"Props don't ever forget things like that," he smiles, "and I hope I get my chance to even the score. It's just one of those things that happen. Os came in on an angle and Free State got their timing just right."

Bands, however, is not without a sense of humour. "You know in Bloemfontein Os is just below the mayor, so people have really rubbed it in, but we'll meet again…" confirming the axiom that for members of the frontrow union, scrummaging is a matter of honour.

Now boasting Currie Cup, Super 12 and Springbok contracts, Bands' lifestyle has changed dramatically but, as befits his position, he has his feet firmly on the ground.

"Even if they paid me only R20 a game I'd still want to be doing this," he said as he prepared for the biggest challenge of his career: helping to tame the juggernaut England pack at the Subiaco Oval in Perth.