Vodacom Bulls coach Jake White has praised his franchise captain Ruan Nortje for his incredible rise at the Springboks over the course of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship.
Nortje, who made his Bok debut in 2022, but had to wait two more years for another chance, was initially excluded from the Rugby Championship squad, before being called up because of a brace of injuries and now has played three consecutive tests - winning all three with the Boks, and twice against the All Blacks.
Nortje is consistently one of the workhorses in the team and often is among the top tacklers in the side, wearing his heart on his sleeve as he tirelessly plays for the national team.
While he isn’t as in your face as some of the other physical brutes in the Bok squad, Nortje simply puts his head down and gets on with the job.
That, in itself, has been a success story and White, speaking this week on a Vodacom United Rugby Championship coaches call, was more than a proud franchise coach.
“Ruan is a success story if you ever want to hear one,” White said.
“He came from a small school, he wasn’t a provincial player as a junior, he basically came in as a late developer through university, and now he’s played the All Blacks and beaten them in a test match
“He’s incredibly disciplined. He trains hard. He works hard and puts incredible amounts of detail in. I don’t think people are aware that he has his own laptop and analysis system so he works hours and hours behind the scenes on his game and lineouts, and that’s why I think he can contribute like he does into the Springbok set-up.”
'CAN ONLY GET BETTER'
White said he was looking forward to getting Nortje back in the squad and believed he would be a much more valuable player now that he has a bunch of tests under his belt.
“I’m looking forward to him coming back as well because of all the experience he picked up with the Springboks,” White explained.
“He can only get better. He’s still young for a lock forward. I’m looking forward to seeing how he comes back and brings whatever he’s learned into the group.”
White also spoke about his coaching philosophy and the recruitment philosophy of getting the right players into the Bulls to ensure they are successful.
“Obviously you look for the right kind of player, and I'm talking about as a person. I think everyone talks about it, but you really need someone that fits into the way your club wants to develop. And then secondly, the combination between youth and experience,” White said,
“I think, you know, we're very fortunate now that we've added much more seasoned campaigners. You know, guy like Aphiwe Dyantyi has come in as a Springbok winger. A guy like Cobus Wiese has come in as a seasoned English Premiership player. You know, you saw what Akker van der Merwe did last year. You saw what guys like that have done to our team. Marcel (Coetzee), for instance, coming back from overseas, from Ulster.
“So I would say that that's the secret, making sure you get the balance right between youth and experience. And I would think this year is probably the closest we've been to the ideal combinations we're looking for.
“We now have junior players becoming Springboks and older guys that are coming back. That's the kind of age profile I spoke about when I got the job. We sort of lost that age profile.
“We had lots of young players like Elrigh Louw in that age group that were all youngsters coming out of the junior ranks. We had guys like Bismarck du Plessis stay in for the back end of their careers, but for the first time in four seasons I think we've got the middle age group now sorted as well.
“So we've got youngsters like Cameron Hanekom that are still young. Even Elrigh Louw is relatively young, but we have now got a group of players that fit in the middle bracket that will obviously make us much stronger and will allow us to have much more depth in our squad selections.”
The Bulls open their campaign on the 28th of September against Edinburgh.