Bok legend who's seen it all

MEMORIES: TALKS RASSIE, SACHA, BRANDY AND WHAT MAKES HIM 'DE MOER IN'

- Marizka Coetzer

Legendary Springbok rugby player Frik du Preez, who turns 90 next month, reckons he's achieved everything he wanted to in his life.

Du Preez played 38 Tests and 87 games for the Springboks, went on six Springbok tours and played 109 games for the Northern Transvaal now the Blue Bulls.

He was also the founding member of the Blue Bull Rugby Trust in 1989 and the treasurer who supported players who needed financial backing.

"I have been retired or unemployed for years, so now I just sit around. I have run around enough in my life. My dream was to become a Springbok and farm - and I did both," he said.

Du Preez kept cattle in the semi-Kal-ahari, in Bray. "It's the place in SA that's the furthest from the ocean," he says.

He first went to the ocean aged 23, when he played rugby for the army's first team. "They flew us to Cape Town. It was the first time I flew in an aeroplane and the first time I saw the ocean. Two years later, I was standing on a boat as a Springbok, travelling the world," he said.

Du Preez said they didn't get paid to play for the Springboks in those days.