BRUMBIES winger Clyde Rathbone has some way to go before his rugby days are over, but he is warming to the possibility of a new sporting career after his retirement from the game - as an Olympic bobsledder.

Rathbone, who earned 26 Test caps with the Wallabies and 45 in Super 14 with the Brumbies, was recently approached to take up the sport with a view to making the Winter Olympic Games.

However, he has one serious reservation - and it has nothing to do with the 140kmh speed bobsleds can reach.

Asked if he has been watching reruns of the 1993 comedy Cool Runnings, based on the true story of the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, to gain an insight, Rathbone laughed and said: "It was one of my favourite movies. I don't know if I want to be putting eggs down my underpants though c"

He was referring to one of the Jamaican team, former champion push-carter Sanka Coffie, who kept a good luck egg in his skin suit and made teammates cringe when he would offer it up asking: "You want to kiss my egg?"

The approach to take up the sport came from former rugby sevens player and winter Olympian Jeremy Rolleston, who made a successful transition between the two sports to make the 2006 Turin Games in the two-man bobsled.

Rathbone's greatest asset would be his speed and strength off the mark, which earned him the nickname of "White Rhino" when he first came to Australia in 2003 from South Africa, where he was born and raised in Durban. And he still has speed. He clocked the fastest time over 40 metres in sprint tests at the Brumbies this week. But Rathbone feels he has plenty of rugby ahead. He hopes to extend his Brumbies contract after it expires next year.

"It's been an email and a phone call, that's the extent of it," he said of the contact he has had with Rolleston. "It's a non-issue [for now] for me. It's something I will think about when I have finished my contract here.

"You don't get many opportunities to go to the Olympics and do something like that. That is how it piqued my interest, but that was really it.

"You have to find things to challenge yourself when you have finished football, and that might be something I think about when I am finished, but hopefully that is not for a few years."

Rathbone said he intended to play out his remaining rugby days with the Brumbies.

"I have said for a long time I would like to play out my career here. There is no other team I would rather play for," he said.

"If I can have a good season next year and put my hand up, hopefully I can sign for another 10 years."

Rathbone's career has been stalled by knee surgery that ruled him out of this year's Super 14 season. He is now fully fit and in pre-season training with the Brumbies, but the injury did cruel his Wallabies hopes.

Rathbone attempted to impress for selection in the Wallabies squad for the spring tour by signing with Eastern Suburbs for the Shute Shield competition. He played nine games for Easts, including their semi-final defeat.

Having missed Wallabies selection, he is focused on a new era at the Brumbies under new coach Andy Friend. Rathbone said his nine games with Easts were still good "for the confidence coming into pre-season".

He also appreciates that there is "a bit of perspective that comes with having a career-threatening injury". "A couple of years ago, pre-season was punishment. Now I run out there with a smile on my face and enjoy it."

¡ The Australian Rugby Union will today launch an initiative to help the Prairiewood High School in south-western Sydney raise funds to tour Japan as Australia's representative at an international schools contest in April.