Promising Test career cruelly cut short by back injury

As prop forwards go, former Springbok tighthead Eddie Andrews, who turned 33 on Thursday, should be in the prime of his career.

His name might even have been on the Stormers team sheet for last night's Super 14 home game against the Cheetahs, the Cape side's last home match before heading overseas.

He should also have won more than the 23 Test caps he collected under coach Jake White from 2004 to 2007.

The reason he didn't was a nagging back injury that ended his eight-year professional career, and which forced his retirement just weeks before the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

But even when presented with an 11th-hour lifeline, Andrews declined the chance, putting honesty ahead of ambition when others might have been tempted to do, or say, anything to sneak back into the spotlight.

"After the 2007 Tri-Nations I played Currie Cup for WP, but after the first game I pulled up in pain in my driveway," he said. "The weeks went by and I couldn't come right.

"I missed World Cup selection but when BJ Botha got injured, Peter Jooste (Springbok convener of selectors) phoned me and said 'pack your bags'. But I said, 'Peter, I can't ...'"

Given that his chronic nerve condition first occurred in 2000 - three years before his Stormers debut - Andrews remains "thankful for every minute I had on the field because I'm the first to admit I wasn't the best or most talented player, but I got an opportunity".

Hollywood has cashed in with sporting blockbusters about athletes with far less interesting rags-to-riches tales than that of Andrews.

"I never even played rugby at school," he laughs. "I come from a community where drugs and gangsterism are rife and that is why, on June 12 2004 (against Ireland in Bloemfontein), I cried when I sang the national anthem standing next to John Smit and Os du Randt, as an ordinary boytjie from Mitchells Plain.

"It was a defining moment. I wasn't fazed by the occasion because I knew exactly who I was, everyone respected that and they took confidence from knowing that I knew exactly what my job was."

Andrews's seven-year journey from chubby school-leaver in 1997 to Springbok prop was nothing short of miraculous. And, just as his career ended with a phone call, so it began with one.

"After school I put on weight and thought I might as well use it to my advantage," he says. "I phoned WP, told them where I lived, and asked where the nearest club was. That's how I virtually fell into rugby."

Andrews started as a lock at Mitchells Plain United before moving to prop at fourth-division Primrose in 1998. His fortunes changed the following year with the arrival of Gert Smal as WP head coach.

"He and (assistant) Carel du Plessis invited players to trials and I was one of them. Gert liked what he saw and put me into the Vodacom Cup squad. I was a wild-card selection but I played three seasons."

Andrews made his Currie Cup debut in 2002 and played his first Super 12 match the following year, against the Hurricanes in Wellington.

"I remember sitting on the bench when Jonah Lomu walked past. I thought: 'He should be playing prop, he's a big fellow.'"

Andrews's Test career spanned almost the entire White era, eventually ending against the All Blacks in Christchurch, less than two months before the World Cup.

Once the extent of his injury was revealed, the father of three knew he'd reached the end of his rugby-playing road.

"I still miss the game a lot, but I remember the same doctor who examined me in 2000 saying that if I continued playing, they'd have to operate and that I'd have to retire anyway," he says. "He said if I stopped immediately, I wouldn't need the operation. That's when I decided to walk away from rugby and embrace the next phase of my life."

These days, Andrews and former Stormers teammate Tonderai Chavhanga run the Joshua Foundation, which teaches life and rugby skills to youngsters in Mitchells Plain.

"My wife jokes that I'm more busy now than when I was playing, but when you have a vision, realising it takes up most of your time," he says.

Andrews married high-school sweetheart Jackie 10 years ago and they have three children - Erin (8) Joel (4) and Jessie (2). He is also studying through WP to become a coach, but says a decision on a professional career would be made taking his family into account.

"Coaching is the perfect platform to enrich people's lives, but I'd want to work with junior teams because the senior guys are set in their ways," he says.

"I'd prefer to sow seeds lower down the pecking order. But whatever I do nowadays, the first question I ask is: 'What impact does this have on my family?'"