Bands on the run, a try to remember

By CHRIS RATTUE

There are two categories when it comes to nominations for Greatest Rugby Try.

First, there's the one reserved for Gareth Edwards' score in the epic Barbarians-All Blacks game at Cardiff Arms Park in 1973, the so-called greatest rugby match.

Welshman Phil Bennett began the move in front of his posts, beating four All Blacks with his step, before five more Barbarians handled the ball and Edwards roared on to a Derek Quinnell pass meant for John Bevan.

As subjective as these arguments can be, the legend of the Edwards try and that game only grows, a sparkle from the past as the relentless schedule of modern rugby with its clinical defensive lines clogs the memory cells.

Putting up a contender against the Edwards' masterpiece is as futile as suggesting someone could fling a puck around better than Wayne Gretzky.

In Academy Award terms, Edwards' try was an ensemble effort, deserving of the best movie gong.

The runners-up category had a new contender after Saturday night. South African prop Richard Bands joined the nominations in a section full of individual efforts - best act by a rugby artist if you like. Enter Bands on the run.

Maybe it wouldn't win, but Bands would surely claim best test try by a prop.

When the 120kg tighthead trundled at impressive speed on a 47m run to the left-hand corner in the 14th minute, he revived memories of the sensational try by All Blacks flanker Ian Kirkpatrick against the Lions in Christchurch in 1971.

The 29-year-old Bands is the come-from-nowhere prop whose place in test football is about as unlikely as the try he scored at Carisbrook.

A grinning Bands stood outside the Springboks' dressing room and told the Herald: "I never dreamed I would ever play for my country. I was happy to play provincial."

Bands ran on to a flat pass from Joost van der Westhuizen and beat the lunge of Kees Meeuws, whose seven tries in 29 tests makes him the most successful test try scoring prop, although none of those compares to Bands' stunner in his seventh test.

Bands, who had shimmied past referee Peter Marshall, fended off a weak tackle from the chasing Carlos Spencer who grasped at Bands' shoulders, and beat the cover of Aaron Mauger.

When asked about the tackle in a TV interview by Frank Bunce, Spencer replied: "Don't go there, bro."

After the All Blacks held the early sway, Bands' try brought the score back to 7-5 down and the under-siege South Africans began to respond to the battle call.

Kirkpatrick, one of Bennett's sidestep "victims" in the Barbarians game, who was at Carisbrook as a TV commentator, said: "I haven't seen a better try from a prop in years, or any time.

"When he saw Carlos coming he obviously thought, 'I can brush this guy off'. If you go high like that you're going to get bounced. He would have been better diving at Bands' feet.

"It got the South Africans into the game. They seemed to get confidence. The game will be remembered more for that try than anything else."

Bands comes from the northern town of Lichtenburg, near South Africa's border with Botswana.

He was a flanker in the early days, something he quickly recalled when asked about the speed he showed on a chilly Dunedin night.

His early career was almost entirely limited to matches at high school and in the defence forces, a tough rugby training ground.

He had just one first-class match in 1994 for the Stellaland province, strugglers in the Currie Cup B section, before quitting rugby for almost the rest of the decade to work on the family's cattle farm.

Bands said: "I was from the countryside and after the'95 World Cup many smaller unions disappeared.

"It was difficult. I had to travel 300km for training at night and we got 50 rand [about $30 then] a game. I lasted half a season before I found it impossible to continue.

"But I remember saying to my dad in'99 that I wanted to try and give rugby another go and see what happens."

It meant that seven years after playing for Stellaland, he made his second first-class appearance at the age of 27.

After an average season with Free State, Bands was lured by the Blue Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer to play hooker in the Currie Cup.

Bands was converted a second time, to prop, for the Super 12 Bulls last year. Bands believes the Blue Bulls' win over the Lions in the Currie Cup final at Ellis Park that year was the turning point in his propping career.

He made an immediate impression in the Super 12 this year, with his upright barrel-chested frame launching apprentice runs for what turned into a masterclass at Carisbrook.

Bands displayed a dry wit at Saturday night's press conference, saying: "I have not scored a try like that recently - certainly not from the halfway line.

"Joost made the call and I ran a line and Peter Marshall was in front of me so I sidestepped him right into a gap.

"There was a huge hole there and I thought about passing on the 22m line but there seemed to be a chance so I kept going.

"I really wanted to pass but then I thought maybe I should give it a bash and, well, it paid off."

The Springboks believe they have either made up lost ground or showed that the gap between them and the All Blacks was not large anyway - that the Pretoria disaster was a "freak" as captain Corne Krige put it.

They needed Bands' try though. Maybe it will prove the launching point for a Springboks' revival.

Perhaps the try is a false indicator, only time will tell. But it lifted this fiercely fought test above the ordinary in what was another thumbs-down for winter night football.