CARDIFF (AFP) - For two players to go all the way from the same school team to international level is a notable achiement but for them then to find themselves playing against one another is rare indeed.

Yet that is the position South Africa star Bryan Habana and Wales prop forward Rhys Thomas will find themselves come Saturday's rugby union international here at the Millennium Stadium.

The match will be the first time that Habana and Thomas, members of the same team at Johannesburg's King Edward VII school, where crowds were as large as 12,000, have played against each other on a rugby pitch.

Habana, despite all he has since achieved in the game, including scoring 30 tries in his 35 Tests and becoming the current World Player of the Year, still has vivid memories of his schooldays and Thomas in particular.

"Rhys was an unbelievable bloke," Habana told reporters at South Africa's hotel ahead of the Springboks first match since they beat England 15-6 in October's World Cup final in Paris. "He was probably as big at school as he is now and the opposition really hated him.

"He was a fantastic bloke off the field and we had some good times when we were playing back at school."

Thomas, whose father Colin was born in Newport, south Wales, is set to make his first start for Wales this weekend.

Despite being born and brought up in South Africa, the 25-year-old front-row always supported his father's homeland and Habana said there was no resentment that a product of the strong South African school rugby system was now playing for another country.

"When Rhys finished school, he had the option of coming to Wales and he's grabbed that opportunity with both hands, so all credit to him.

"I think he has worked unbelievably hard over the last few years.

"There are a lot of very good props in Wales at the moment, so he's done really well to get into the team.

"I'm really looking forward to the contest over the weekend. As King's boys, we'll probably swap jerseys after the game and keep that memory going."

Habana added: "I knew his dad very well. I remember we had a couple of braais, South African barbeques, around at their place.

"They are a great family, very enthusiastic with a strong rugby tradition."

Earlier this week Thomas, who soon after leaving school seven years ago moved to Wales and joined Newport, said Habana had played at scrum-half and centre before opting for the wing because "he wasn't that fond of passing".

Told of this comment, a smiling Habana replied: "I don't think Rhys could have ended up anywhere other than prop. I think I ended up on the wing because I was a little bit quicker than him."

That Thomas is playing at all on Saturday is all the more remarkable given that just over a year ago, following an Anglo-Welsh Cup fixture against Northampton, he collapsed in the car park at Newport's Rodney Parade ground with a split artery in his heart.

He then had to spend six months out recovering from, in his words, a "mild heart attack" before being given the go-ahead to resume his playing career.

"It was bad time in my life," Thomas, who was then about to join the Wales squad for the first time, told the Western Mail.

"I had worked so hard to get to that stage in my career and I thought that was going to be the end of it for me.

"The doctors told me I maybe wouldn't be able to carry on but I went through a few months of recovery and I was lucky enough for them to say I could."