If the Springboks go on to retain their Rugby World Cup title, there will be no more deserving wearer of a winner's medal than Deon Fourie. There will also be no one else in the squad who would have been considered less likely to be part of a global champion team had you posed the question two years ago.
Regardless of what happens from here with the Boks in France, Fourie has more than justified the decision to cap him as South Africa’s oldest international debutant against Wales in Bloemfontein last July and the subsequent decision to include him in the squad for this World Cup.
The Boks would probably not be playing against England in Saturday’s semifinal were it not for the impact that Fourie and Kwagga Smith made in coming off the bench in last weekend’s quarterfinal against France in Paris. The French were dominating the collisions and winning quick ball for their dangerous backs before that pair were introduced. Then it all changed. Fourie, as he so often has for the DHL Stormers, played the role of game-changer and the Boks survived to fight another day. Otherwise, they’d be watching the semifinals from back home in South Africa this weekend.
OLD-SCHOOL PLAYER
Fourie, known as ‘Brannas’ by his mates because he’s one of those old-school players who enjoys a post-match celebration, was a bargain buy for the Stormers when he chose to return home from a long stint playing in France. Had Stormers coach John Dobson known then what he was getting, Fourie would surely have been able to set a much higher asking price.
But then, who was to know back then that Fourie is one of those who is really a young kid in a much older person’s body.
“When I watch Deon, both on the playing field and in training, I realise I am looking at a 23-year-old who is trapped in a 37-year-old’s body, he is just phenomenal,” says Dobson.
So phenomenal in fact that the Stormers might be seeing a few more seasons of one of their most valuable players.
“We are looking to sign him for another two years and he is very keen to play on. Given how he has gone in the few seasons he has been with us, there is no reason why he can’t continue to play with aplomb. He really is just such a freaky player. And he is a talisman in every respect.
“He is also an outstanding leader. He is not one of those who seeks leadership roles, he is just a guy everyone around him naturally follows. He is a glue guy. He is one of those guys that glues a team together, a player that the rest of the team just gels around when he is there.”
VALUE UNDERLINED WHEN HE’S NOT THERE
Fourie’s standing as the glue guy at the Stormers was underlined when the Cape franchise went to extraordinary lengths to get Fourie into his familiar No 6 jersey during the most recent Vodacom United Rugby Championship playoffs.
He had sustained an injury towards the end of the Heineken Champions Cup round-of-16 clash with Harlequins in Cape Town. When he left the field the Stormers were 32-7 up, and when the Harlequins came back with a flurry of tries to eventually go down by just four points, Nick Mallett in the Supersport studio pointed to Fourie’s absence as the reason.
The Harlequins ball was no longer being slowed down, and sure enough Fourie’s absence was then keenly felt in the next weekend’s clash with Exeter Chiefs in the Champions Cup quarterfinal in England. He was sorely missed again when the Stormers surrendered a long unbeaten run at their home field at DHL Stadium to Munster the following weekend.
For a few weeks, the Cape rugby media was dominated by speculation over whether Fourie would be ready for the playoff phase. Fourie had fractured an eye socket, and most players who suffer that kind of injury are out for eight weeks. But although prepared for the worst, Dobson wasn’t that sure that the commitment and bravery of Fourie wouldn’t prevail and get him back much sooner.
“I think it is going to be quite a while. He blew his nose last Saturday night and his eye did not pop out, but it’s one of those horrible ones,” said Dobson at the time.
“You can get him back in a few weeks, but it can also be up to eight weeks. He’s very tough though, so maybe we’ll be looking at four weeks.”
SHOWED HIS COURAGE EARLY
Fourie did return in the four weeks that Dobson thought might be possible, but sustained a hamstring tweak playing in the quarterfinal win over the Vodacom Bulls. So he was highly doubtful for the following week’s semifinal against Connacht. What did the Stormers do? They waited on Fourie’s fitness right up to the eve of the game.
Fourie’s bravery was something that impressed Dobson and made him realise he had contracted a special player on the first URC tour undertaken by the Stormers in September 2021.
“I think we realised very early on that we had got more than we bargained for when we recruited Deon. You may remember a particularly bleak Currie Cup game where we got a good hiding at the hands of the Bulls at Newlands. Deon was newly back to us then but he was the one player who really stood out, he was the guy who fought and stood up to the Bulls’ intimidatory tactics.
“But a particular memory is of that first URC tour. Deon sustained a fracture to the cheekbone early on in the game against Benetton in Treviso. That is a particularly painful injury but Deon played through it until halftime. We only realised that there was a major problem at halftime when his eye nearly came out of its socket when he sneezed. We had to take him off then, but Deon would probably have played the rest of the game. We realised then we had a freaky player in our ranks.”
EXTENT OF HIS CONTRIBUTION WAS UNEXPECTED
When Dobson contracted Fourie, he definitely wasn’t expecting him to become such a stalwart for his team and go on to win the URC and earn his first Bok cap at the record age of 35.
“It is nice for a coach to be credited with making excellent recruitment acquisitions, but that is not one I can really claim for myself,” said Dobson.
“We recruited Deon for the same reason we recruited Brok Harris, for almost as much of an off-field role as an on-field one. You will recall that a lot of guys had left. First Eben Etzebeth, Damian de Allende and Cheslin Kolbe, and then came the seismic one in terms of departures when we lost Siya (Kolisi), Bongi (Mbonambi) and Pieter-Steph (du Toit).
“We were effectively left with a young new team. Deon and Brokkie had been part of a winning Stormers team a decade earlier and when I heard Deon was available and keen to return home I thought he would be useful to have as someone who could pass on the secrets of what had made the Stormers good in the past. Deon was the captain when Western Province broke a long Currie Cup drought by winning the 2012 final against the Sharks in Durban when the domestic competition was still being played at full strength.
“There was no ways we would have expected it to turn out like it has. Deon himself is laughing about it himself. I spoke to him this week. He was speaking about how by returning he went on to win his 100th cap for the Stormers, be part of a winning team in the URC, and then became the oldest Springbok and now he is at the World Cup and playing in a semifinal. It’s a proper fairytale but not one that was planned.”
HAS SHOWN HIS SELFLESSNESS FOR THE CAUSE
Fourie’s selflessness has played a key role in enabling the Boks to be innovative around their selections. When Fourie was mentioned as the man who’d fill in at hooker once Malcolm Marx was injured and departed the World Cup stage and he was replaced by a flyhalf in Handre Pollard, many of those who’d been exposed to Fourie’s unwillingness to play his old position were perplexed.
“At one stage last year we were under pressure at hooker. It was after a game against Zebre where Andre-Hugo Venter was injured, and we also had other players who play that position out,” recalls Dobson.
“Someone mentioned that Deon could cover the position and we spoke him about it. His response was not now, he’d prefer not to play hooker if he could help it. But we didn’t completely discount it and he threw a few lineouts in training and took part in a few scrums. We weren’t convinced, and neither was he. His heart wasn’t in it and his only concern at scrum time was seeing his kids again. So we dropped the idea.
“We were just trying it out as a piecemeal way to get around a difficult situation though. What the Bok coaches have done is different, they’ve clearly worked long and hard with Deon on getting him ready to play hooker. He has been conditioned and prepped, they let him know when he was first selected for the Boks that they might need him to play hooker at some point. Deon has responded in typical Deon fashion by putting his heart and soul into it for his team and his country.”
He has indeed, and no one would doubt his professionalism and drive, but it is what Dobson calls his old-school approach to the game that may have inspired his late career flourish.
“Deon is one of those guys who players who played in a different era might relate to,” says Dobson.
“He is constantly angry on the field. He channels the aggression, but he goes onto the field angry, and his fuse blows if someone is tackled late, or something like that. He does have a short fuse, but he controls it. He is an old-school player, really good in the social environment after the game, always the first to open a beer afterwards. He is old school playing in the new age and it is an attitude that rubs off on the players around him. He is the glue in the team in every respect.”