Rugby: Andy Ellis hangs on to handlebars

Andy Ellis's wife and mum are less impressed by his moustache than rugby commentators and fans. Photo / Geoff Sloan

A guy's got to work pretty hard to get into the dogbox with his wife, his mother, and his grandmother.

Crusaders halfback Andy Ellis has - thanks to his splendid Victorian moustache, which has been a talking point for footie commentators and fans this season.

His wife Emma hates it.

So does his mother.

And his grandmother has stopped inviting him over for dinner.

But he said it will probably stay to the end of the season, even though he grew it just for fun last summer.

"I turned up at training with it and had a bit of a laugh with the boys, and I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it," he told the Star Canterbury.

"I've held the razor to it ready to shave it, and I just couldn't do it.

"Literally, my hand froze as I was about to shave it, and it's been the same when I tried to do it a couple of times since, much to my wife's disgust. She thought it needed to go when it first reared its ugly head. But it lives on!"

Fans more tolerant of furry facial ornamentation than Emma Ellis see a touch of Wyatt Earp or Biggles or a dastardly Victorian villain in Ellis's curling whiskers (the secret of the curl, by the way, is Hungarian moustache wax).

But he says it's a mixture of things.

"I'm waiting for my Musketeers outfit to arrive, and I want to go and buy an old English car, an MG roadster or something like that, and drive around with a blazer jacket on.

"I'm just going through my options at the moment deciding how I want to take it!"

In the Crusaders forward pack, of course, there are some quite biblical beards, but they're a separate story - sprouting from a competition among the frontrowers at the start of the season.

The first to shave has top pay a fine into a pot, which the last will take.

There's also a Crusaders tradition of not shaving on the South African tour, except for some cosmetic trimming - hence all the mutton chops in Bloemfontein.

Ellis, meanwhile, threw out a challenge to the other inside backs to copy him. It looks as though Dan Carter has taken it up, sort of, and Ellis reckons Carter's 'tache will come good in six months.