When the then-Springbok coach Jake White selected an experimental team for the opening match of the 2006 end-of-year tour against Ireland at Lansdowne Road, there were many back home who protested. He had Bryan Habana playing centre, and a completely new back three. And sure enough, Ireland made easy work of their opponents, winning 32-15.
Yet amid the gloom of that blustery night in Dublin (it was a late kick-off), there was one shining light that pierced through the darkness and suggested the exercise might not have been in vain: It came in the performance of the young 19-year-old Sharks wing, Frans Steyn. While all those around him were stuttering and stumbling, Steyn stood tall. He did enough to earn his place for the following two games, the prime games of the tour, both against England at Twickenham. The Boks lost narrowly as England came from behind in the first game, but then saved their coach his job a week later with an emphatic win, South Africa’s first in London in many years. Again, Steyn was one of the star players.
Thus started an international journey for Steyn that was to see him earn two World Cup winners' medals in a career that was officially ended by the announcement of his retirement overnight (Tuesday). His first touch of the Webb Ellis Cup came in 2007, after a final at Stade de France that saw him kick a monstrous penalty to keep England at touching distance. His second came four years ago, when he was part of the Boks’ famous Bomb Squad, again against England but this time in Yokohama, Japan.
“It’s safe to say that Frans Steyn will go down in the annals as a legend of the #Springboks and South African rugby” - more here: https://t.co/anF3dNse2e ??#StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/AqWZR7GiqT
— Springboks (@Springboks) July 12, 2023
LEGENDARY STATUS
Like Os du Randt, who featured in both the 1995 and 2007 triumphs, Steyn’s two winners' medals earned him legendary status not only in South Africa but also world rugby. And yet he could have achieved so much more, broken so many more records, were it not for a stage in his career where his ambitions appeared to be at odds with various coaches and, sometimes, some of his teammates.
Now that the final full-stop has been placed on Steyn’s career, we are left to look back at a profile that reflects that he played 78 times for his country, scored 165 points and crossed for 11 tries. What might it have been had he played in the several years he was on the outer, regarded as the enfant terrible of SA rugby?
One of the Bok coaches to clash with Steyn, indeed the first of them, was Peter de Villiers. Div wrote in his book, Politically Incorrect, that the spat with Steyn that saw the product of Aliwal North farming country lost to the Boks for part of his stint as national coach was one of his biggest regrets.
“I always saw Frans as someone who could end up playing 150 to 200 games for his country, but sadly that is not going to happen,” said De Villiers.
It would probably have been more than 200, thus easily setting a record for number of caps that would never stand to be broken. Like his Protea cricketing namesake Dale, who had injuries to blame for truncating his career and not ending with a wicket tally to rival that of England’s Jimmy Anderson, Steyn would almost certainly have set points-scoring records.
It is of course a team sport though, and it is what the Boks missed when he wasn’t there that should be most regretted. It wasn’t to win the World Cup, but instead the Tri-Nations, but his monstrous kicks that helped beat the All Blacks, and knocked the stuffing out of them psychologically, in the tournament decider in Hamilton in 2009 will forever be remembered as a Steyn career highlight.
One of his great strengths was his ability to excel anywhere at the back outside of scrumhalf. He debuted for South Africa on the wing, was at fullback for the win against England at the end of that 2006 tour, and it was from that position he kicked the two drop-goals as a replacement that won the Boks a tight Tri-Nations game against the Wallabies in Cape Town in 2007.
He was at inside centre though, as a replacement for Jean de Villiers, who tore his bicep in the first match of the 2007 RWC in France, when he featured so memorably in South Africa’s second taste of rugby’s Holy Grail. The following season, De Villiers’ first in charge after taking over from White, Steyn played flyhalf, which was also where he ended his Bok odyssey at his old Sharks home ground of Kings Park last September.
HE WAS AT FLYHALF WHEN HE FIRST ANNOUNCED HIMSELF
And it was as a flyhalf at that same Kings Park, earlier in the 2006 season on a rainy Friday night when the Sharks under the coaching of Dick Muir hosted Western Province in a Currie Cup game, that Steyn first announced himself to the South African rugby public. Muir, speaking to supersport.com on the eve of last year’s Argentina test for a Steyn Insider, reminded us of the circumstances around Steyn’s match-winning performance for his team that night.
“What I recall is that he had no fear of the occasion, and while he didn’t get ahead of himself, and everything was “ja oom” and “nee oom”, he also wasn’t scared of making the step up,” recalled Muir.
“We selected him on the bench for that game against Western Province, with Brent Russell playing flyhalf. That was going to be how we intended easing Frans into senior provincial rugby.
“However, on the day of the game rain was threatening, and the forecast was particularly dire for match time. It was a Friday night Currie Cup game. I started thinking they would be the ideal conditions for Frans’s playing style, his physical presence and his big boot. So I started hatching a plan. I spoke to Brent and asked if he’d be happy to step back to let Frans wear the No 10. He said he was. I wanted to see if we could play a different game on the day to what we had intended playing.
“So Frans ended up starting, and it did end up pouring with rain. He had an absolute blinder and completely controlled the match in the wet conditions. From what I recall, he was the man of the match, and our match-winner. From there it was one way and that was up for Frans, and two or three weeks later Jake (White) called him into the Springbok squad, where he made his international debut as a 19-year-old on the end-of-year tour.”
MUIR ACCELERATED HIS ARRIVAL IN THE BIG TIME
Had it not been for Muir, the Steyn story might well have turned out quite differently. It was Muir who accelerated Steyn’s career to the point that he ended up playing for the Boks before the end of 2006. Had he not done so, it is hard to see how Steyn would have been ready to play any role in the 2007 World Cup.
“I spotted Frans while he was at the Sharks Academy. He was playing on the field next to where the main team was training, Kings Park 2. They were all youngsters and I didn’t know that much about them but I spotted this guy who just stood out to me immediately as a sublime talent,” said Muir.
“He was running and picking up the ball with one hand, and then booting it the length of the field. Then he would run back to his position and do it all over again. Well, I immediately wanted him at my practice.”
Muir initially encountered opposition from the Academy coaches when he expressed a desire to get Steyn immediately involved in senior provincial rugby.
“When I went over to enquire who the young player was, the academy coaches told me that he was prodigiously talented but too young. I was told he’s only 19, let’s give him more time. But I was adamant. I said, 'he must come through now, he’s ready'.”
SUPER FINAL OF 2007 WAS A BLIP BUT FRANS PARKED IT
The rest, as they say, is history, but it wasn’t always immediately a happy history in which Steyn hit the right note every single time. And Muir would probably prefer to forget that if it were not for Steyn’s eagerness to kick the conversion that would have put the Sharks out of sight in the 2007 final against the Bulls, he would have ended his own coaching career as a Super Rugby winner.
Reserve lock Albert van den Berg has dotted down the try that had put the Sharks six points ahead with time nearly up. The conversion was a relatively easy one, and the raising of the flags appeared inevitable and with it the Sharks being confirmed as South Africa’s first Super Rugby champions.
But the youthful and eager Steyn rushed the kick, and it was missed. It meant the Bulls were still in range. Amid a surreal silence, Bryan Habana surged through a gap that opened in the Sharks' defence and scored in a position where the winning conversion for the Bulls couldn’t be missed.
It was a moment that AJ Venter, who was the captain of the Sharks at the time because the starting skipper John Smit was by then off the field watching from the sidelines, has never forgotten.
“Percy Montgomery was off the field at the time, but Butch was on the field, and he was better than Frans at short kicks,” recalled Venter in an interview I did with him in 2019.
“I remember thinking in the moment ‘this is not supposed to be Frans’s kick’. But I also remember in that moment seeing how excited he was at having the opportunity to contribute to what would have been an historic victory. I literally then found myself thinking ‘I cannot take that ball away from this kid, this is his moment’. I thought I should just let it be and I walked away.
"I knew what I had to do. But when he just ran up and took the tee I remember thinking ‘it is what it is’.”
That incident might have ruined another player, but not Steyn. It was just three weeks later that he played the winning hand in the tight Tri-Nations game against the Wallabies, and from there it was onwards and upwards to World Cup glory.
“That was the kind of player he was,” said Muir. “He just had a freaky ability to conjure up almost anything and it frequently made him a match-winner.”
MISUNDERSTOOD
Did success come too early for Steyn? Perhaps. Being a World Cup winner at the start of just your third decade of life must be one hell of a thing to experience, and of course everyone could see what a special talent he was. So inevitably the offers from overseas came thick and fast.
Muir reckons that succeeding so young meant that there were big decisions that had to be made while he was still young and impressionable, and much of the negative perception that surrounded Steyn when he was in and out of favour with Bok coaches - Heyneke Meyer was another he appeared to clash with - was both inaccurate and unfair.
“Frans was just wanting to play rugby, but unfortunately he had other influences around him that made it hard and he became the subject of a tug of war that made him look like something he wasn’t,” said Muir.
SAYS GOODBYE WITH NO REGRETS
Whatever the case, Steyn’s career spanned three generations of South African players, rather than just one, and he was eager to be part of another World Cup for his country. Sadly, he wasn’t able to make his exit on his terms because of the knee injury that has kept him off the field this year, and it prompted him to call time on a stellar career.
"It's been a tough few months coming to terms with saying goodbye to the game that has been my entire life," Steyn said in the Instagram post that confirmed his retirement.
"In answer to the many questions I have faced since sustaining a knee injury earlier this year, I am hereby announcing my retirement from professional rugby. To be honest, this is not how I envisioned the journey ending. Every player wants to end on their own terms, but I am fortunate to have played this game for so long and [am] incredibly grateful for the journey I have had.
"I have given it my everything, and I have no regrets. I have a massive number of people to thank from all around the world for the support throughout the highs and lows of my career. I will forever be grateful for the opportunities, the friendship, the memories and lessons that rugby has given me.”
??? “I have given it my everything and I have no regrets.”
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) July 11, 2023
Springbok legend Frans Steyn has announced his retirement from professional rugby ??
Thank you for the memories ?? pic.twitter.com/tXzT0trpBc