The Ironman cometh

Spending the day with the Springboks at the Pretoria Police College I came across a wonderful fable that I must relate to you.

Once upon a time there was a young boy who grew up on a farm that bordered on the family property of the late Dr Danie Craven in Lindley in the eastern Free State. He grew up tough, working the land from a young age and having to carry maize and sunflower seed bags when his contemporaries in the city were playing with gameboys.

Imbued with the heritage of Doc Craven, rugby was in his veins and because he was so strong he was put at prop when he started to play the game. His broad shoulders, strong legs and ingrained strength carried him into the SA Schools side, but that is where his rugby stopped.

He suffered a knee injury and took this as a sign that, as a dutiful son, it was time for him to return to the farm to help his father.

He was happy with his lot but then one day the phone rang. On the line was the captain of one of the famous Currie Cup sides who had been a teammate of his when he played for the SA Schools side.

“I want you to come and play for us,” said his now-famous friend. “We’re looking for a tighthead prop and you could be the man.”

Now the farmer was puzzled. To leave the farm was a big decision and he was quite nervous of having to live in a big city. In any case after four years of inactivity perhaps he was no longer good enough?

“Okay,” said the captain of the celebrated team, “do me one favour. Why don’t you just come for a try-out? We’ll take a look at you and if we’re wasting your time we’ll be honest with you and you can go back to the farm.”

But the farmer’s raw talent was still there. He was just what the team were looking for and soon he would make his Currie Cup debut, followed by the Super 12 and, best of all for a boy from Craven country, next came his Springbok colours.

Did I say fable? Not quite. The tale I have just related is the story of new Springbok prop Faan Rautenbach.

“That’s exactly how it happened,” says Corné Krige, the captain in our little fairy story. “We were sitting with a situation in Western Province where we had only one tighthead prop in Cobus Visagie. It was something that worried us and one day while talking to Alan Solomons (WP’s then coach) about possible solutions I remembered Faan Rautenbach.

“He was the tighthead in the SA Schools side that I led in the junior world championships in France and he was awesome at that level. A beast! Bob Skinstad had captained him the following year and also remembered him as a killer scrummager.

“We wondered why it was not that he had not come through to senior level and I was tasked with finding out what had happened to him,” recalls Krige.

“I phoned around and was told he was on the farm. It turned out he had picked up a knee injury and had basically stopped playing rugby.

“I can tell you it took quite a bit of arm twisting to get him to come to Cape Town. I explained that we could not offer him a contract, but that we were dead keen to look him over. Finally he said, ‘okay I’ll be there on Wednesday.’

“I told him that he should phone me once he was in town and when it got quite late and I had not heard from him I thought he had decided not to come. But then the phone went and it was Faan. ‘I’m nearby Cape Town now,’ he told me. ‘Where are you?’ I asked. ‘I’m at the tunnel,” he replied! not knowing that he was still a good few kilometres from actually reaching Cape Town. “He arrived in his bakkie with his clothes in a cardboard box on the back!” laughs Krige.

But that great strength and extraordinary pace for a big man were still intact and Western Province decided to lock him into a contract.

“When he first got here he stayed with me,” says Krige, “and then we found him a house just near Newlands. He is just one of those freaks of nature. He is just so strong; radically strong. He obviously missed out on a few things in the four years he didn’t play rugby but he has it in him to become a legend of the frontrow,” says Rautenbach’s skipper.

Rautenbach himself is a little non-plussed by what has happened to him. “When I went down to Western Province my weight was 136 kilograms and I didn’t think they would be that interested.

“They were very patient, however, and let me find my way back through the Vodacom Cup and held back on putting me in the Currie Cup team. I’ve been very happy with Province and have had great help with my technique from Springboks like Hempies du Toit and Keith Andrews.

“You know, there isn’t a guy who plays rugby in South Africa who doesn’t dream of being a Springbok, but there is never a time you expect it. I still can’t believe it has happened,” he says with genuine amazement.

Adding credence to the proverb that truth is stranger than fiction is the fact that Rautenbach in all likelihood will make his debut alongside his lifelong Eastern Free State teammate Daan Human – himself the subject of something of a fairy tale.

Human, who now farms at Verkeerdevlei some 50 kilometres from Bloemfontein, grew up in Hobhouse and he and Rautenbach first met each other when they were the props in the Eastern Free State team at junior Craven Week.

Human, a protégé of Free State scrum technician Dougie Heymans and Springbok Os du Randt, also got his big break through a Cape connection. Having broken into the Free State side he was in line to be picked for the Cats in the Super 12. That would have been the natural progression, but when Frans Ludeke chose Heinrich Kok instead, Human was snapped up by the Stormers.

He too prospered in his new milieu and is now without question the best loosehead in the country.