He drank us under the table too...You’ve got to live your dream. I’ve been very lucky, I wrote an essay in my school exam - I think I failed - and I remember saying, I want to be a Springbok player or coach. People laughed at me, I was 17, and in those days English-speaking non-Springboks were never going to coach South Africa.
You have to genuinely live and believe in what you want to do. Maybe I will become a Springbok doctor or a Springbok physiotherapist, but I wanted to be involved in rugby at Springbok level.
Rugby was good to me. In the pecking order, I was near to the top because of rugby union. I ate more than most kids sat at the table, at weekends I used to baby-sit my teachers kids, I could get ice cream out of the fridge because they’d gone to the movies. Those things drove me on because I realised how important rugby was as a young boy by making sure you got in the inside lane.
If I could’ve been involved in another sport… I’d like to have been a top class golfer, playing at the Masters and the British Open. Playing at St. Andrews or Augusta would’ve been very special for me.
My hardest tenure… Flying home from tour hurt me the most. I was embarrassed for the younger players on tour. I wasn’t proud of what message, or the situation it put Francois Steyn in. On his first tour, for the coach to go home - he has lived his whole life to be a Springbok and lived his whole life to be on tour - it’s a bit embarrassing.
I always preached about how special it was to be a Springbok, to play in the colours, and to go on tour and then half way through I get called back home. I was embarrassed for everybody.
All the standards and things I thought were very important and non-negotiable were almost being contradicted by the fact that I was going back home.
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