Mark Andrews talks about Pieter-Steph du Toit

As a young player cutting it at the Sharks, Mark Andrews was quickly put in his place by coach Ian McIntosh. Andrews, an Under-20 player from East London, had been spotted playing touch rugby on vacation in Durban and before long was in the Natal squad.

“Master,” Mac soon said to him, “Don’t let me catch you in the wings waiting for your shot at glory. Let’s get this straight – you are a lock. You take your ball in the lineouts, you take the opposition’s ball, you tackle your backside off, you shove your prop forward, and then you spend all afternoon hitting rucks. You are not here to look good, your job is to make others look good. Are we clear?”

Andrews clearly got the message and grew into a Springbok legend revered for his uncompromising approach to second row. When he retired after 77 Tests, one of his old rivals, All Black Ian Jones said: “I can only tell him now that he is retired that I hated playing against him – he was the epitome of THE Springbok forward. On a Sunday after I had played the Boks, I knew I had played against Mark Andrews.”

Praise does not come much higher, and that is why the rugby world should prick up its ears and take note when the usually reticent Andrews is stung into praise of one of his own.

“When I heard the news that Pieter-Steph du Toit was out of the World Cup, I reckoned the Boks’ chances of winning had dropped by at least five percent. He is that good,” Andrews said. “Am I pleased to hear that he is only out for three months and will make it to England? You bet, because he is the best lock in South Africa and has the potential to become one of the greatest locks of all time. I don’t want to stroke his ego, but I really mean it. He is in a class of his own.”

Andrews has remained a hugely interested and meticulous student of the game since his retirement in 2001 after 77 Tests. He admits that he is not far being obsessed with observing second-row play.

“I love rugby, I love the Springboks and the Sharks. It is impossible for me to watch a game without making mental notes of how the locks are playing,” the 43-year-old says. “I have my own little ‘14 point’ system I use to tick off the contribution a lock makes to the game, with half of those boxes being about when the player’s team does not have the ball.”

Andrews’ private system covers everything from the obvious such as taking your own lineout ball, receiving of kick-offs, scrum effectiveness, work rate in hitting rucks, and defence, which is broken down into taking tackles and getting into position to make tackles, with their being an obvious and significant difference.

“In short, most good locks tick the boxes I have for when their team is in possession, but the better locks are the ones that can contribute beyond what is expected,” he says. “In other words, they are the ones that win not only win their ball but some of that of the opposition, and they win or disrupt kick-offs. They make offensive tackles instead of just sliding off the player that run at them. They make big hits. They read play and get into position to make a contribution.”

Andrews says Du Toit is the only player he knows to tick all seven boxes on both sides of the dividing line.

“He is the best lock in South Africa,” Andrews reckons. “If a Martian had to come down to earth and take an interest in rugby, and I showed him the statistics regarding second row play, he would say ‘Victor who?

by Mike Greenaway