Oom Piet Was A Free State And Sharks Legend

Craig Davidson is a successful La Lucia restauranter but rugby fans will better recall him as a pugnacious scrumhalf for the Sharks and Springboks in the early 2000s.

I have vivid memories of Davidson putting his body on the line for province and country but also have a middle-of-the-night image of him playing carpet bowls with Sharks team manager Piet Strydom.

I cant recall why I happened to be walking down a hotel corridor in the wee hours of a Dunedin morning but there was Davidson and Oom Piet playing bowls, and most competitively at that.

Davidson was a pre-match insomniac and team doctor Craig Roberts had given up prescribing sleeping tablets to Energy Bunny Davidson they might as well have been smarties.

In any case, there they were hotly contesting a game of carpet bowls not too many hours before kick-off against the Highlanders, with current Springbok attack coach Tony Brown just one of the adversaries Davidson would face.