Mark Andrews

Izimvo is thrilled to introduce South African rugby legend and member of the 1995 Rugby World Cup winning team: Mark Andrews.

Considered as one of the greatest locks to have played the game, Mark’s Springbok career started at the young age of 22 when he made his debut against England in 1994. Earning a total of 77 test caps, Mark’s career highlights include:

• SA Rugby Player of the year nomination in 1994, his debut year.
• Being a member of the 1995 Rugby World Cup team.
• 60 test points including 12 test tries.
• 160 games for the Sharks.
• Currie Cups wins in 1995 and 1996.

Following his retirement in 2001, Mark played a season in the United Kingdom. He retired from the game at the end of the 2004 season at the age of 32.

Wikipedia Page.
Location: Durban

Mark was kind enough to answer the following questions:

Personal

Q: How would you like yourself introduced at a social event.

A: Mark Andrews would have prefered to have been a rock star but as he had no voice, rhythm or looks decided to play rugby.

Q: Tell us something that not many others know about you. This could be anything from a phobia to your favorite movie.

A: Water polo was my sport of choice as a school boy and it was only when at Stellenbosch varsity that I was forced to choose between polo and Rugby.

Q: What you are currently doing and in which ways you are still involved in the game of Rugby?

A: I am a shareholder in a sourcing company that has an exclusive supply contract with Massmart. (Game and Makro stores) As I spend a fair amount of time sourcing products in China, Taiwan and India I have no structured role in Rugby. I am a sponsor of a farm labours team in the Kie road district of East London and try and stay involved with the legends activities as and when possible.

Q: How would you describe your dream home and where in South African would you like it to be?

A: I have the land and will be starting building in about 3 years. The land is on the Gonubie river near East London and myself and 9 school friends have bought 13 hectares on the Gonubie river and are creating an eco estate. 2 houses are already complete and the rest will all be completed in about 5 years.

This question was proudly sponsored by Private Property – Looking for your dream holiday home in East London? How about this 3 bedroom home with breathtaking views of Beacon Bay.

Rugby in South Africa

Mark and Matt Damon

Q: Which moment during your schoolboy rugby career are you most proud of?

A: Beating our arch rivals Dale College by 40 points on their re-union day.

Q: If you were to select a South African all-star team with players from any era, who would pick as captain and hire as the coach?

A: Ian Macintosh would be my coach but he would have to be accompanied by a mental health practitioner as he can get pretty emotional. My captain would be Gary Teichmann.

Q: What advice would you offer school-boy coaches in terms of preparing talented players for the off-field demands of a professional career?

A: Have humility at all times, No matter how talented or famous you get you will never be greater than the game or your team and without both you would be not able to achieve anything in rugby.

Q: What do you think the impact commercialization has had on the school boy game?

A: As much as it has helped create bigger, stronger, smarter players it has unfortunately also created a huge number of problems. Steroid Abuse, over training in Gym and a shift away from academic pursuits are just a few issues that have arisen due to the commercialization of Rugby.

A scary stat is that less than 1% of all players who play rugby with the objective of making a career from the game actually do and worse is that the financial awards are never enough to secure one financially for life even if you do hit the big time and big pay days. Unlike Golf where if you have the talent you can earn a decent living for decades, in rugby you have a single decade if you are lucky and with the risk of injury so high, rugby can be a perilous career.

Q: What are your predictions, in terms of technological advances, for the next generation of players?

A: Athletes of all codes seldom understand their bodies and what makes the body and mind allow for a consistent performance game after game. Sports Scientists are forever chasing the “thing” that will allow an athlete to be bigger, stronger, quicker etc but they often cause other weaknesses by focusing on their discovery.

So simply what I am saying is that in my career we went from doing huge endurance sessions and no explosive power to little endurance and tons of explosive power to huge weight sessions with a bit of endurance and explosive power etc.

As every sports scientist came out with a new way to train to make you better the sports world veered to the extreme of that pursuit in an attempt to maximize the return to the athlete often at the expense of a balanced approach.

My prediction is that players and trainers will understand how to train an athlete in such a way that allows his body to perform at its best. Training is going to be engineered to allow each individual to get the best out of their body and accepting that not every new discovery will enhance each athlete in the same way.

In essence training even for team sports will be engineered to the individual.

Q: What advice would you offer the young school boy wanting to emulate your career?

A: Train hard and smart. Get advice from someone you respect who has been on the journey and listen to what they say. It’s an old cliché but you can’t walk into a sports store and buy 10 years of experience. Be prepared to make sacrifices and continually push yourself, not just on the field but off it. Be disciplined and never give up after a bad turn or set back. I have played with too many players a lot more talented than I ever was but who gave up too quickly when things got tough or never went their way.

Life in South Africa

Q: South Africa’s greatest sporting export is?

A: Ernie Els.

Q: If, with the flick of your fingers, you could improve one thing about South Africa, what would it be?

A: Crime.

Q: When asked about South Africa and the current crime levels by those internationally, how do you respond?

A: Having traveled with Rugby as a 19-year-old for the 1st time while South Africa was still under Apartheid was an eye opener to me as I never realized how badly the rest of the world viewed all white South Africans. If you were white and came from South Africa you must be a racist appeared to be the viewpoint of most foreigners.

During this time I learnt that I could change the perception of those people I met. I do the same thing now in my international travels when asked about crime in South Africa which every foreigner seems to know about if they have heard of South Africa.

You can’t deny crime does not exist (It’s hard to when myself and my family have been victims of crime on 12 separate occasions in the last 5 years) but if you give a balanced opinion you can make them change their opinion that South Africa is run by criminals and violent gangsters. This does get harder to do with the like of Malema and our own president carrying on like they do though.

We have to accept that South Africa needs foreign investment and tourist Dollars, Pounds and Euro’s so when as a South African you meet foreigners it is in all our interests to tell them about the positives about our country and highlight the good things that we have.

Life in Durban

Q: What do you most enjoy about living in Durban?

A: The Winters, you just can’t beat a winter’s day in Durban. Even more so if you have lived in Northern England like I did for 2 miserable years.

Q: Favorite restaurant in or around Durban for dinner with old friends?

A: Butcher Boys Umhlanga for a meal and the George & Dragon for a beer.

Q: If you were tasked with commissioning a postal stamp depicting the beauty of Durban and it’s people, which image would you select?

A: I know that Durban seems to be hanging its hat on the new stadium as its new poster child but I would still have a guy in baggies surfing the perfect wave. It was how I saw Durban as a youngster living in the eastern cape and it seems to summarize Durban for me.

Q: Favorite outdoor venue for spending quality time with the family?

Mark and his two sons, Tyson and Xavier.

A: Ushaka marine world would get my kids vote every day of the week.

Q: What are your thoughts on the Durban’s new Moses Mabhida Stadium and do you think the Sharks should make it their new home?

A: No one can argue that the stadium is not very impressive and up with the world’s best but how can we as a country and city build a stadium that costs Billions and will be a drain on our city for years to come. I find it very hard to feel proud of a stadium that cost billions when I drive to work every day and see people living in shacks.

If we had to spend the money why was the current ABSA stadium not upgraded and the rest of the allocated budget used to upgrade the surrounding sporting facilities. Surely we could have used the money to invest in an upgraded athletics track, Cycle Track, Equestrian centre, Hockey fields, basketball courts, swimming pool complex, netball courts, soccer fields etc.

This would have been more sustainable in that it would have added world-class facilities to all these sporting codes that would have been sustainable in that the members of all these codes would have contributed in fees to maintain all these facilities.

It would also have made Durban the destination for a host of national events in all those respective codes making Durban truly the sports capital of Africa thus bringing in constant income to the city.

Finally Durban could then bid for the Africa Games, Commonwealth games, FINA world games etc, etc.

Should the Sharks move, well they would be silly not to move as who else is going to use the stadium after the world cup?

General

Q: Which non-rugby sporting captain do you most admire and why?

A: I don’t really have a favorite captain from other codes but I do respect individual sportsmen and women who do not play team sports as they have to be their own captain at all times. I know the timing is not great but Tiger Woods as an athlete is simply superb.

Q: What were some of your favorite line-out calls?

A: When I played in France as a youngster I arrived not speaking a word of French and as my team could not speak English we had to come up with a fast way of identifying when I had to jump. After much discussion which I never understood a word of it was decided to simply call out my first name or surname when it was my ball. The problem was that the French can’t say Andrews rather they say Andrew with a very guttural pronunciation of the dr in Andrew. This caused me to not jump in my 1st line-out as when the captain called Andrew I had no idea he was calling my name. After more on field discussions they decided to leave out the Surname bit and for the rest of the season my call was simply my name, Mark.

Q: One book that you would make required reading for all school-boy rugby players?

A: Michael Jordan’s book , I can’t accept not trying.

Q: Which South African personality would you most want directing you on your car’s GPS device?

Q: The lady who does the pre re-corded pre flight announcement on SAA flights.

Q: Who would you most like to read about on Izimvo and what would you ask them?

A: I would say Zuma but I don’t think any ANC politician in this country is able to give a straight honest answer about anything so it would have to be Barry Hilton…. We all need to laugh more in this country.

We’d like to thank Mark for taking the time to answer our questions and wish him every success in the future.

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