The living legend that is Springbok loosehead prop Ox Nche says players in his position prefer cakes to salads, so it is hard not to wonder what he would make of Sazi Sandi’s preference. On the DHL Stormers website, the 27-year-old lists sushi as his favourite meal. Not quite a salad, but also definitely a long way from a cake.
Sazi hasn’t spoken much to the media over his years at Western Province and the Stormers, and listening to him speak in a zoom press conference at the start of the buildup week to Saturday's Vodacom URC clash with Edinburgh that may well be his 50th game in Stormers colours it appears that may be a loss for all of us.
He has an interesting story to tell, and that has nothing to do with sushi, which he never mentioned in the conference call.
Instead he spoke about the role his late father, Bonisile, the well known and successful human rights lawyer from Grahamstown who died in 2017, played in facilitating his decision to become a professional rugby player rather than focus on academics and pursue a more conventional career.
For tighthead prop Sandi, who has played much of his career so far in the shadow of the Springboks who have worn the Stormers No 3, meaning Frans Malherbe and Neethling Fouche, getting to his 50th will be payoff for the decision he made together with his father when he left St Andrews College as an 18 year old.
ONE OF A CLUTCH OF STORMERS HEAD BOYS
Sandi excelled at school, making the SA Schools side, but there was more to him than that. Like three other Stormers front rankers, Zach Porthen (Wynberg), Vernon Matongo (Northwood) and Ntuthuko Mchunu (Maritzburg College), Sandi was head boy (two other Stormers head boys are Ben-Jason Dixon from Paul Roos and Paul de Villiers who was schooled at Oakdale).
His father having excelled in law and made a name for himself in his profession, it was understandable that perhaps he saw a different pathway for his son.
“I have been here since I was 18 years old so for me when I do play my 50th game for the Stormers it will be a very special moment for me,” said Sandi.
“It is something that I have earmarked from the start of the season, and I will be very excited when the opportunity comes, because I will think of my dad and the role he played in helping me choose WP as the union I should come to.”
TOOK HIS DAD SOME CONVINCING THAT RUGBY WAS THE WAY TO GO
According to Sandi, it took some convincing before his father saw rugby as a viable profession, but once he did so he told him to go all in.
“My dad was a lawyer and became a judge and he didn’t really see rugby as a career opportunity. He was more focused on me and my brothers focusing on our academics like he did and getting into university and getting a job,” he recalled.
“My dad loved his job, he had a great passion for it. So he was very influential to us, talking about that. And you also have to remember the rugby landscape of the earlier 2000s was very different to what it is now.
My brothers were good players, my eldest brother in particular was very good, but my dad was a bit reluctant, maybe because of the lack of knowledge within at that stage. You know ‘How does that work? Because it is not like a career you can do for 40 years’.
“What I was proposing to do was very different to what he did. When I played Grant Khomo Week the prospect of me playing professional rugby was starting, and then when I played Craven Week and made the South African Schools side it became even more of a reality. My dad started thinking that maybe this kid could do it and he could see that I was keen.
“My brother also got in his ear, chatted to him about it, and he became very excited about me doing well. But then he needed more information about it. So at the end of my matric year we went off and visited a few unions. When we came down to the Stormers, and went to Newlands, my dad got to ask a few questions he wanted to ask and then he was sold. He was hooked on me playing for WP/Stormers.
“He became very excited about it and when we got home we sat down in his bedroom and we mapped out how you get to the top level in rugby. We literally broke down each level, from under-19 all the way to the Springboks.
"That was a crucial moment for me because that was my dad saying “Go for it’. And if you are going to go for it, go for all of it. He passed away shortly after that and now, after playing 49 games and coming to my 50th, when I get my opportunity it will be great to look back at that story and say you know that decision paid off.”
INSPIRATIONAL WORK ETHIC
Sandi says his father was a huge inspiration in his life and that the greatest gift his father gave him was his work ethic.
“My dad was a very hard worker and that rubbed off on me being a young kid at school,” says Sandi.
“I would always go to the town in my off time or during holidays and go to the gym and do extras. Because I would see my dad awake at 3am working, going over his notes, and always being very meticulous and proud of his job.
He never said ‘Hey, you must be like this’. He just showed the way through his example. His big thing was that whatever you do you must do to the best of your ability and you must do everything you can to build the platform for that success.
“His own track record in his career spoke for itself,” added the Stormers prop.
Sandi is not yet a Bok but then he is only 27. If there is one position in rugby where players mature late, it is the one he plays. And being part of the successful Stormers front row system is a statement in itself about his ability.
When loosehead Matongo did an interview with Kickoff magazine last year, he listed Sandi alongside the experienced Malherbe and Fouche when it came to difficulty level when training against them, and described Sandi as one of the most explosive props he’d scrummed against.
PROFITS FROM BEING PART OF STORMERS SCRUM CULTURE
So the ultimate goal set out together with his father in that planning session all those years, that of becoming a Springbok, could well still happen, and being part of a dominant Stormers set piece week in and week out, whether it is by coming off the bench or starting, certainly won’t do him any harm.
And the quality of the players he has scrummed against on a daily basis in training in his years at the Stormers - the likes of Steven Kitshoff, the underrated Ali `Vermaak, Matongo and Mchunu, will have helped too
“When you come in as a youngster you get a few punishments. You have scrum coaches in your ear, in the beginning it was someone like Shimmy (Hanyani Shimange) and now it is Brokkie (Brok Harris) driving the standards up,” Sandi explained.
“It is all about getting an understanding of what goes on in the scrum, what it takes to be successful in the scrum. They give you problems to solve, ways to get your right foot forward.
"And you are scrumming with someone like Neethling or Frans, with all their experience, and against someone like Ali Vermaak. You are rubbing shoulders with and training against some of the best scrummagers in the world.”
WILCO JOINING IS “BIG”
Next year there will be another world rated scrummager to rub shoulders with - Bok strongman Wilco Louw is set during the off-season to return to the Cape from the Bulls.
It would be understandable if Sandi saw Louw’s return as a negative, for after all the Stormers also have a very young new Bok tighthead in the form of Porthen on their books, but if there will be competition for places Sandi sees that as secondary to what he can learn.
“That is going to be a big thing,” Sandi says of Louw’s return. “Having a guy like that who has succeeded on the world stage has to be a positive for you. It’s an opportunity to get tips, to rub shoulders with someone at the top of the game. Being close to him and willing to learn off Wilco is sure to add a few things to my arsenal.”
Sandi has had an impressive arsenal for some time. He has recalled his first senior game, when he came on for WP in a Currie Cup clash with the Cheetahs and won a penalty at the first scrum he participated in, but a standout memory for some Stormers fans will be the role he played in achieving Stormers scrum dominance in a breakthrough win over the Bulls at Loftus in 2022.
That was the first time the two teams had played a north/south derby in the URC, and that win for the Stormers has set the tone for the years that have followed.
BOAN AND PIERRE WILL PRESENT INTERESTING CHALLENGE
Should he play against Edinburgh on Saturday Sandi has an interesting challenge awaiting him in the sense that Edinburgh don’t have just one international loosehead, but two - Scotland international Pierre Schoeman is in Cape Town and expected to return to the Edinburgh starting team after doing well in the Guinness Six Nations, and the other loosehead Boan Venter is of course a Springbok.
“Both Boan and Pierre are very good players and we are doing our analysis on them. When you play against the best it is a great challenge, you have just got to put your right foot forward. They are world class, so it is an opportunity to prove yourself,” said Sandi.
“At the Stormers we are always keen to go (at scrum time). Brokkie sets out the standard at the start of the week, and the buy-in is not just from the front row players. The back five also get really excited about scrumming. We love it when the guys in the back five are saying ‘Let’s go for it’. The biggest thing is that we must always go together.”