2002-04-23

Jacques Olivier, the former Springbok and current Pumas stalwart has decided not to even hang up his boots but to send them so far away that he would never see them again.

"I'm finished, finished, finished. So much so, that I'm going to bronze my boots so that I never have to put my feet in them again. Some time ago I watched a video of one of the matches and when I saw myself with my terrible bald patch, I said to myself that bald guy does not belong on a rugby field."

However the baldness is not truly the reason why the popular Olivier (34) decided to give up rugby.

"Three weeks ago I fell off a wall and injured my knee for the umpteenth time. When I had to leave the field during the match between the Pumas and the Falcons with an injured knee the week after that and the doctor told me I needed to have an operation, I decided that was it."

Although Olivier played 22 Tests and 50 matches in the Bok jersey at centre or on the wing and had people talking with his exhilarating and powerful runs, he managed only one try.

"If you have to ask me which Springbok try I remember the best, I unfortunately would have to answer that it is my only Springbok try! And a handicapped person could have scored that try to boot."

Olivier's rugby career began at the Hoërskool Menlo Park in Pretoria and almost ended there too.

"I played no rugby in the army. When I arrived at Tukkies a wing withdrew from the sixth team and I was sent on as an emergency replacement. Within a year I was playing for the then Northern Transvaal."

He became a Blue Bull in 1991 and a Springbok in 1992. "I still have a lot of feeling for the Bulls, but these days I'm ashamed of them," Olivier said.

Looking back at his career he admits that "everything was more due to luck than to wisdom".

Olivier plans to concentrate on his various business interests from here on and although Tuks asked him to coach their second team, he says he will have to think about that for a long time yet.