Forgotten Ox returns

13 April 2012

Os Du Randt fills out an armchair at Richmond Gate Hotel as comfortably as a bison squeezed into the back seat of a Mini. "I was always big," he smiles but to South African rugby the grand old prop is now bigger than big. In an era of constant flux for the game there, he represents a massive living symbol of a glorious heritage.

The last remaining Springbok among the World Cup-winning class of 1995, Du Randt will be asked on Saturday to lead out South Africa against England at Twickenham for his 50th cap by the coach who drove hundreds of miles across the veldt just to persuade a 32-year-old fat veteran farmer his country needed him.

Jake White's foresight and persistence paid off so handsomely that the Springbok revival under his stewardship this term has had much to do with the triumphant year of "the Ox".

"He's the one guy in this side who has beaten all the top sides, the only one who's never lost to England," says White, noting the current score is Ox 2 England 0. "If you need any extra motivation, you just get him to say a couple of words. He doesn't say a lot but when he does, the youngsters listen and it means everything."

Suggest to Du Randt that his return this year after a four-year absence from the team, helping them to win the Tri-Nations title, was a powerful symbol for South Africa rugby and he just shrugs: "I don't like to be put on a pedestal, I'd rather be just like one of the other players."

He can't, though. Like it or not, to his compatriots, this bulky, balding giant gives off a comforting whiff of the glory years. He smiles that at 6ft 3in and 19-and-three-quarter stone, he's lighter than he's been at any time in the last decade, even when he was laying that fabled early hit on Jonah Lomu in the final which signalled the destination of the World Cup in 1995.

What South Africans delight in most is that he's brought back a bit of old-fashioned grunt, hardness and respect to a pack whose lame capitulation to the All Blacks last year in the World Cup was felt to have betrayed a great green heritage.

Extraordinarily, since he returned against Ireland on his home Bloemfontein turf this June to the heartfelt old Afrikaan cries of "Os, Os, Os", there are those who swear that Jacobus Petrus du Randt has been as good as when he was once universally recognised as the best loosehead in the game, a mobile, improbably fast battering ram who was as effective as the tanks he used to command during his national service.

Du Randt himself reckons he is "90 to 95 per cent" of his old effectiveness but he's still got 100 per cent of his intimidating presence. "You know, off the field I'm a really easy-going guy," he explained yesterday, before noting with a faintly chilling air: "But on the pitch, although I'm not the kind who'll try to hurt you, within the laws of the game I'll really take it hard to you and won't show any mercy."

No wonder the Boks missed him. At first, it was a self-imposed exile when, after being dropped at the end of 1999 and struggling with knee trouble, he decided to quit and buy a beef cattle farm deep in the Free State countryside, a couple of hours from Bloemfontein.

He was disillusioned with the game. "I didn't want anything to do with rugby," he says. "I was fed up with it. If it came on the TV, I would switch over."

But as his injuries healed, he regained freshness. With his family's agreement, he settled on a return to competition, even if it was only a bit of fun with his province. The trouble was he'd ballooned to 22 stone. I was carrying far too much weight yet I always believed in myself and thought that if I was fit I could compete with anyone. I'd always felt I'd left the game on a low note, it wasn't how I wanted to be remembered."

Slogging away on the farm helped his dieting. "When 50 tons of fertiliser gets delivered, it's always a competition between me and the workers who can lift the most of the 50kg bags off the truck. I had to get my neck muscles activated so I tried carrying as many as I could on my head."

By last year, he was back playing provincial rugby, this year Super-12 and, in between, even though he'd written off any chance of ever playing Test rugby again, got the visit of encouragement from new coach White who found a bloke "going through the motions, believing his Springbok days were over".

Now, White just smiles that it was "a very worthwhile trip". Watching the grand old Ox ploughing around with such strength, skill and determination "as if every game was his last", he cannot think of a more deserving tribute than to see him lead out the Springboks on Saturday.

"Just seeing him do that will prove a huge inspiration to the rest of the team," he says. "It'll be an emotional day for everyone because there's no one quite like the Ox."

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