Where are they now? Colin Beck

He might have played only three Tests for South Africa - two of them as a replacement - but for a man of Colin Beck's mercurial talents it was all the time he needed to write a colourful chapter in the Springbok annals.

These days, Beck, 50, prefers to "lie low" and has little to do with the game. Things were very different 30 years ago, when his reputation as an attacking, risk-taking flyhalf saw him graduate, within the space of a year, from bit-part hopeful for Stellenbosch seconds to playing a central role in some of the most controversial and famous Springbok matches ever played.

Beck has been married to Lynette for 27 years, has helped raise three successful children (Colin, Melissa and Janneke), is a partner in a private-asset finance company, and enjoys a few sets of his other great love, tennis - all of which suggests he has succeeded in blending quietly into the suburban background of Bellville, where he lives and works.

He even jokes that he's able to use his real names, Jacobus Johannes, or even the abbreviated JJ, when he doesn't want to be recognised. "Colin is my nickname," he says. "There were already many Kobuses and Johans in the family and my grandfather's name was Colin, so when I was born they decided to call me Colin. It's great, I can use the others as an alias."

There was a time, however, when Beck lived for the rugby spotlight, and in 1981 its glare was never as unceasing as during the Boks' infamous tour of New Zealand.

Selected as back-up flyhalf to Naas Botha, Beck played all his Test rugby at centre - as a half-time replacement for Willie du Plessis in the second and third Tests against the All Blacks, and then as a try-scoring starter against the US two weeks later, in a match staged in top secret on a polo field in Glenville, New York, to avoid clashes with anti-apartheid demonstrators.

In all three Tests, Beck, just 22, formed a promising partnership with Danie Gerber, who was 23. But the pair never again played together.

Apart from playing in the "Flour Bomb Test" in Auckland, Beck also ran out in nine midweek matches on the tour. He is probably best remembered for an incident in the dying seconds of the game against New Zealand Maori in Napier on August 25, when he became the catalyst for a controversy that continues to this day.

"Ah, the drop," he laughs. "We were three points behind and it was the last move of the game, so I decided to go for a drop-goal instead of pass the ball out."

In the match footage (currently being re-run on the ESPN Classic satellite TV channel), the ball appears to sail wide. The crowd behind the posts thought so, while many of the players began to get into position for a 22m dropout - only for the referee to run back to halfway and so give the Boks a 12-12 draw.

"Look, it's a difficult call as to whether it went over," says Beck with a mischievous grin. I don't think the ref was in a very good position and there was a bit of confusion. The ball went relatively high and I have a feeling it went directly over the one post, which was very short, so the decision could have gone either way and the ref gave us the benefit of the doubt.

"Whether it went over or not I really can't say, it was too long ago. But it's in the record books."

Beck grew up "with a rugby ball in one hand and a tennis ball in the other", but sadly his time at the top was fated to be short-lived. He was plucked from the Maties' second team by Dr Danie Craven and had "a blinder" for WP against Natal in only his third Currie Cup match.

The Bok selectors were impressed, and he suddenly found himself on the bench for the series against Bill Beaumont's 1980 Lions. But in an era when players refused to leave the field unless they had to be carried off, he would have to wait another year before donning the green-and-gold for the first time (together with Carel du Plessis, Johan Heunis and Hennie Bekker) against Poverty Bay.

Beck had graduated with an economics degree but was busy with his business psychology honours at Stellenbosch when the '81 squad was announced.

"I remember going to my dad and saying: 'I have a problem! Either I go on tour or I finish my studies'. He said to me: 'you know what you want to do'. I never did finish the honours."

For Beck, a long and successful career seemed a certainty. But he injured cruciate ligaments in a tackle in 1983 and didn't play at all in 1984. "I tried to make a comeback in '85 but I just couldn't accelerate. I could no longer play my attacking game, so instead of change the way I played I rather just packed it in." He was 25.

Beck says the 1981 side are planning a reunion tour to coincide with the 2011 Rugby World Cup. "I'm not sure how far we've got with fundraising but we definitely need a few more rand to pull it off."

If the tour takes place, Beck will be thankful he's around to see it happen. He suffered a minor heart attack just a month before his 50th birthday, playing tennis against a colleague.

"It was a shocker and I have a different outlook on life now. I'm braaiing less and cutting down on the red wine, although (former Bok wing) Jannie Engelbrecht always says two glasses are good for the heart, but that it's the bottom two glasses in the bottle you should be drinking!"

Beck admits he has neither the patience nor the time to be a professional coach, although he never turned down the chance to help run coaching clinics with his old teammate Bekker in the amateur days.

"Whenever Hennie needed cheap labour he'd phone me and afterwards give me a bottle of wine. We once held a clinic at a school in Rondebosch and they paid us with a kilo of wors.

"I feel those years I spent playing were enough for me, and now I just want to spend time with my family and help Janneke with her tennis. Coaching takes up all of one's time and after what happened to me I don't want to rob my children of any more quality time."