Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i SA RUGBY

At the start of the 2020 Super Rugby season, the Sharks played a central role in maintaining the feel-good factor in South African rugby as they embraced an attractive brand of rugby to fly the SA flag alongside the Stormers. In particular, World Cup-winning Bok star Lukhanyo Am has been central to the Sharks’ new approach. Having taken on additional responsibility as captain, the 26-year-old tells us it was time to take another step up in terms of his overall contribution to the team. Former Bok skipper and centre Jean de Villiers also weighs in on what sets Am apart as a consummate professional. Welshman Jamie Roberts chats to us about his unexpected move to the Stormers and his love for Cape Town that first took shape on a high-school…

LUKHANYO AM Taking centre stage. Great way finishing the tour with a win. ¾,’ noted the proud Sharks captain alongside fellow midfielders Andre Esterhuizen, Jeremy Ward and Marius Louw. CURWIN BOSCH ‘Congrats on the 50th brother. Let’s make it two good ones,’ said the Sharks flyhalf alongside Stormers wing and former Grey High School schoolmate Sergeal Petersen. COURTNALL SKOSAN ‘Your gift will take you places you could once only dream of!’ said the Lions wing as he and teammate Elton Jantjies enjoyed some time off at Bondi Beach in Sydney. DILLYN LEYDS As if being in blue and white every other Saturday isn’t enough,’ stated the Stormers fullback. NIZAAM CARR ‘The team performance last night was unbelievable. Best night in a Wasps jersey,’ said the former Stormers loose forward as…

Five years ago, when the 2015 World Cup wound down, Willem Alberts was satisfied that his rugby career was almost over. He’d had a 10-year firstclass run dotted with highlights, including a long stint as the designated ‘heavy’ in the Springbok pack. Life had been good. He wasn’t expecting an offer from Stade Francais, but he got one – and a productive five years in Paris ensued, as did a handful more matches for the Springboks. These days, the drive up the Champs-Elysees has been replaced by the more prosaic N1 highway to Pretoria. He’s been scurrying around, trying to find a house near his parents-in-law. He’s happier, too, to be surrounded by the familiar sights of the Highveld and the creature comforts he was denied during his time overseas.…

Anyone who has met Sikhumbuzo Notshe has always taken away one thing – the Sharks No 8 is not backwards about coming forward with an opinion. It’s a trait us hacks love in a rugby player because the ‘one game at a time’ brigade have been draining our will to live for years. The only thing the media loves more is a player who backs up everything they say with performance on the field. This is something Notshe hasn’t consistently been able to do, for several reasons There have been niggling injuries; South Africa’s preference of No 8s who play the position like blindside flanks; the fact his former employers, the Stormers, for all their reputation as a free-running team, were more often pragmatic and arm-wrestle reliant; not to mention…

WITH CONRAD JANTJES 15. CHRISTIAN CULLEN One of my idols. The first time I tackled him I said, ‘I got you,’ which was a bit embarrassing. 14. TONDERAI CHAVHANGA One of the quickest players I have played with and against. Watching him run was a thing of beauty. 13. JAQUE FOURIE The ultimate team man. Never a dull moment with him around. He always made things happen on attack and defence. 12. JAPIE MULDER Hard as nails. He knew how to get you up for a game. He showed me it’s OK to have a ‘chat’ with the opposition. 11. JONAH LOMU I don’t have to say much about the human wrecking ball. The first time I played against him was at a sevens tournament as a 19-year-old. 10. JONNY…

There’s been a lot of debate around the possibility of the Springboks joining a ‘Seven Nations’ tournament – alongside England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales – when the next broadcast deal expires in 2026. The idea has been shot down by a lot of officials and critics in both hemispheres. I’ve been fascinated by the debate. Why shouldn’t we consider creative ideas that have the potential to boost and improve the global product? While there is value in tradition, we need to ensure the game does not stagnate and that exciting opportunities such as these are duly explored. I would like to see SA Rugby putting South Africa’s interests first. Whether they decide to move north or remain committed to Sanzaar, they must consider what is best for South…

VS NO – SARAH MOCKFORD EDITOR, RUGBY WORLD MAGAZINE There has long been talk of South Africa aligning with European competitions, switching the focus from hemispheres to time zones. We’ve already seen two South African franchises join the Pro14, but the Springboks in the Six (or, as it is rumoured to become, Seven) Nations? This throws up more problems than solutions. For a start, how do you fit the extra matches into an already hideously congested calendar? The mooted change is to expand the championship rather than have the Boks replace, say, Italy, which means an extra six matches. That’s two additional weekends of three fixtures. Where do they go? Some would say slot them into the fallow weeks we currently have, but you have to consider the travel implications…

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MARCH/APRIL SUPER RUGBY MATCH YOU CAN’T MISS CRUSADERS VS JAGUARES Friday, 24 April Orangetheory Stadium, Christchurch 09:05, SS1 14 The number of points Crusaders flyhalf Richie Mo’unga scored in the 2019 final 7 The number of tries Jaguares wing Ramiro Moyano scored last season 19-3 The score, in favour of the Crusaders, when these two sides met in the 2019 final in Christchurch 15 The number of tries Crusaders wing Sevu Reece scored last season PRO14 CHAMPIONS CUP…

Angelo Davids, a product of the South African sevens academy, has risen to prominence and international acclaim with the Blitzboks. But the path he travelled to get to this point was filled with challenges. In a candid interview with SA Rugby magazine, he talks about his family, his religious upbringing, the shocking incident that led him to questioning his faith and how an athletics bursary paved the way for his rugby career. Rugby is a competitive sport where winning or losing can test your self-image. How do you process that? We must remain humble. It’s a great blessing to know that, no matter what, nothing can deter God’s will – it will always be done. I tell my teammates to always ‘train your best and give it your all’, I…

If you’d given Duhan van der Merwe a map and a marker pen in 2016 and asked him to circle Edinburgh – even to sketch a line around the right country – the enormous wing would have been hopelessly flummoxed. It is not that Van der Merwe has a blind spot for geography, only that the Scottish capital did not register the tiniest blip on his radar until the summer of 2017, when Richard Cockerill got in touch and a contract offer landed in his inbox. ‘I knew nothing about Edinburgh,’ Van der Merwe says. ‘Nothing at all. I didn’t even know it existed. I didn’t know where it was, I didn’t even know it was in Scotland. I’d never really heard of it.’ At the time, Van der Merwe…

‘WHEN I SAW THE TRYLINE I JUST DECIDED TO GO FOR IT. I WAS VERY HAPPY WHEN I SCORED. THE SAME WITH THE CONVERSION. YOU TRAIN FOR MOMENTS LIKE THIS AND YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL BE NEEDED’ – Branco du Preez on his crucial try and angled conversion 24-12 The score in favour of Fiji with just 35 seconds of regular time remaining in the LA Sevens final ‘FOR THE INTEGRITY OF THE TOURNAMENT WE ALSO BELIEVE RELOCATING THE MATCHES WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, REGARDLESS OF THE COMPLEXITIES INVOLVED’ – Sanzaar CEO Andy Marinos on moving Super Rugby matches from Japan due to the coronavirus 6 MARCH The date of Super Rugby’s first double-header, in Wollongong ‘THEY REALLY DO BELIEVE IN THAT JERSEY AND HAVE MASSIVE PRIDE PLAYINGFOR THEIR…

Rugby has always been one of the best and most enjoyable team sports to play. Like any relationship it has its good and bad days, and at times it has hurt and disillusioned me, but I never stopped loving the game. Yet I am again at that point where I’ve been disappointed by the game and what’s happening in and around it. At the beginning of March, Glenwood High School confirmed it had expelled four pupils who misrepresented their age to gain admission, including two who previously featured for KZN at the U13 Craven Week. The Grade 8 boys were found to have falsified their identity documents. This incident followed a decision by Durban High School to sever all sporting and cultural ties with Glenwood High. Meanwhile, Glenwood Preparatory School…

There aren’t too many players who would see a World Cup-ending injury as a positive thing, but for Bulls and Springbok prop Trevor Nyakane, no matter what curveballs were sent his way during 2019, there was always going to be a smile on his face. Nyakane has started the new season as a man intent on regaining his Springbok starting spot and is relishing the changes that have taken place in his life over the past few months. The smile on his face is as wide as it has ever been, not only because he is a bona fide World Cup winner, but more because he became a dad. He jokes with teammates and friends, sending them a clip from the movie Bad Boys to illustrate his point. In the…

Jacques Nienaber remembers the first time he set eyes on Duane Vermeulen, at a training session in 2006. Rassie Erasmus was the Cheetahs head coach, while Nienaber was in charge of strength and conditioning at the union. ‘We were watching the players run through a drill,’ Nienaber tells SA Rugby magazine. ‘Rassie told me to keep an eye on this guy. He believed Duane was going to be a worldclass player. ‘I looked at Duane and to be honest I didn’t know what to think. At the age of 19, he was tall and skinny and had a shock of long blond hair. He didn’t strike me as anything special at that stage and I was wondering why Rassie had gone through the trouble of recruiting him from the Pumas.’…

Rassie Erasmus joined the Twittersphere and stated the players must put the Springbok team and ethos before their personal interests. Entitlement in any shape or form should not be tolerated. A series of behind-the-scenes videos show Erasmus speaking to his charges in the lead-up to the World Cup tournament and before the final. He talks about the sacrifices the group will need to make to become the best team in the world. Using himself as an example, the former Bok flank speaks about individuals who feel entitled and how they can poison a team environment and derail a campaign. The videos were widely shared by fans around the world. Media houses reposted the clips after SA Rugby verified the director of rugby was indeed behind the @RassieRugby account. Most concluded…

HIS EARLY YEARS Davids’ story of success began in Klipheuwel, an impoverished village 20km north of Durbanville in the Western Cape, where he lived with his father, mother and younger sister. His father was the local pastor and took their family to church every Sunday and a couple of evenings during the week. ‘I wanted to be a pastor like my dad. He was my hero,’ Davids says. SHOCK ABANDONMENT AND START OF FAMILY STRUGGLES Davids mentioned growing up in the church, where they preached the gospel. But his faith was tested at the age of seven when his father left them. ‘I was in primary school when it happened, my sister was still a baby,’ Davids says. Suddenly their whole life was uprooted and seeing his mother, Ellen, struggle…

According to your Instagram account, you’re in a jungle somewhere in Costa Rica. What are you doing there? That’s a complex question because there are so many facets to what I’m doing. When I finished playing, I felt a calling deep within my soul to be part of a vision that helped people step into an organic way of life. Part of that is becoming more conscious of how the way we live impacts the planet. So I live on an organic farm-turned-healing sanctuary called Rama Organica in the jungles of Costa Rica. I’m a co-owner and we’ve had the farm for three years. It has been a challenging and humbling journey, but we’ve stuck to the vision. That’s a dramatic departure for a rugby player. It is, but there…

In March the BBC ran a story painting a bleak picture of deep ambition, lax policing, condoned cheating and immense pressure exerted on South African schoolboy players, suggesting those things (among others) were at the heart of what they strongly intimated was a drug crisis. Former Wales star Gavin Henson spoke candidly about steroid use in the game, telling WalesOnline: ‘The rule that should be in place is if you get caught taking drugs it should be a jail sentence, because you are stealing a living.’ Shortly after, a friend told me his 13-year-old son, a gifted sportsman, had been offered a full sports scholarship by two prestigious Cape schools. Both wanted him to play rugby and went to extraordinary lengths to convince him theirs was the best place to…

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Jacques Vermuelen is an unassuming young man and while always appearing destined for higher honours, he remained under the radar during his apprenticeship years at Western Province and the Sharks. He is now playing at the Exeter Chiefs in England, where he is beginning to match that promise with consistently impressive performances. Since signing in September 2019, he quickly forced his way into the starting lineup and has become a mainstay of the team as they chase the English Premiership and the European Champions Cup titles. After a stellar school career at Paarl Gimnasium, Vermeulen played in the 2014 and 2015 Junior World Championships. He also performed well for the Sharks when he joined the Durban-based team in 2017, but was not always guaranteed a starting berth. The quiet boy…