He’s not alone, not by any means, but when it comes to paths to Springbok recognition, Deon Fourie has certainly taken the road much less travelled.
Fourie will make his debut for his country when he comes onto the field in Saturday’s second Castle Lager Rugby test against Wales in Bloemfontein, and unlike for many of the other recent debutants, it hasn’t been a path that has been mapped from school days through the academy and age-group ranks.
At the age of 36, most of the players he debuted with for Western Province 13 years ago have long retired. He too would probably be into life after rugby were it not for the interest shown in him by Stormers coach John Dobson when he decided that he’d done his time overseas and was ready to come home.
EYEBROWS RAISED WHEN HE WAS RECRUITED
At the time that Dobson made the announcement that Fourie was joining the Cape franchise, there were probably many who raised their eyebrows. Although he had played both openside flank and No 8 for WP and the Stormers, many of us remembered him as a hooker, which was where he started out his first class career.
He did captain Province to a highly unlikely Currie Cup final win over the Sharks in Durban in 2012, and showed then his leadership qualities, sheer determination and refusal to lose. But did anyone think he was going to be the star in a winning Stormers team, let alone a Bok? Fourie will probably forgive us for thinking not, for he admits that if there was any dream of playing in the green and gold, he effectively gave up on it when he decided to go and play overseas.
“To be honest, seven years ago when I went overseas I put any hope of playing for the Boks on the backburner,” he says.
“Back then you couldn’t play for the Boks if you went overseas as overseas-based players were ineligible for Springbok colours.”
In short, Fourie had pretty much made his choice, and while he didn’t say it in the Bloemfontein press conference where his selection for Saturday’s game was confirmed, the decision to play overseas would have been an acknowledgement that his chances of playing for the Boks were minimal anyway.
NOT THINKING OF BOKS WHEN HE RETURNED
Neither would he have been thinking of playing for the Boks when he returned. He was already 34 years of age then, and now he is 36, and breaking a record to be the oldest player to make his debut for South Africa. The record was previously held by former Transvaal flank Deon Lotter, who was a few months younger than Fourie is now when he first pulled on the jersey.
MUIR AND STEWART TREAD A SIMILAR PATH
So aside from Lotter, who else makes his international debut at 36? There are two 30-somethings that immediately spring to my mind when I think of players who made their debut late. Former Natal and WP centre Dick Muir’s path wasn’t completely dissimilar to that of Fourie. For years Muir was tipped for Bok selection when he was such an important part of Ian McIntosh’s successful Natal team, but he just couldn’t crack it. Not even when McIntosh was Bok coach.
It was only when Muir moved to Cape Town for what proved a final top-level rugby swansong with WP, who he led to their first outright Currie Cup title in 11 years in 1997, that the call finally came. Nick Mallett was the coach then, and Muir played in all the tests that the Boks played on a hugely successful tour of France, Italy and the UK. The end was nigh though, and early the following season he called it a day when he suffered an injury.
The other player to make it in the nick of time in his mid-30s was another WP player, Christian Stewart. In fact, it was later that same year that Muir retired, 1998, that Stewart was switched from centre to flyhalf by Alan Solomons. He cooked in that position, and ended up adding two Bok caps to his Canadian caps to become a dual international before he too retired from rugby.
RETIREMENT NOT BECKONING FOR FOURIE
Retirement isn’t beckoning for Fourie though. He has just signed a two-year extension to his contract, which would take him to 38 when it comes to an end. Stormers coach Dobson clearly has much faith in Fourie’s ability to keep going, and so he should, for Fourie was a revelation during the Vodacom United Rugby Championship and his work as an openside flank made him the scourge to opposing teams.
After playing a big role in helping the Stormers win their first major franchise trophy, something he was particularly vested in after being part of the team that lost the 2010 Super Rugby final to the Bulls, Fourie immediately made it clear he wanted to be part of future Stormers success. For him, it wasn’t just going to stop with the win in the final.
For his part, Dobson did not claim for himself any kind of genius status for his decision to bring Fourie home.
“To be honest, I never saw it turning out this way. I’d love to claim that I saw Deon coming here and being a match-winner, but I can’t do that,” said Dobson in the build-up to the URC final, where Fourie played his landmark 100th game for the franchise.
“The intention when we heard Deon was available was to bring him back for his experience. He’d been a WP captain and had played a lot of rugby both here and overseas and we wanted him to bring experience that would rub off on the other players. We didn’t even necessarily see him as a starter. That just happened, he took his opportunity, and then built into it from there.”
UTILITY VALUE
Part of Dobson’s thinking would also have revolved around his utility value. He did start his career at hooker before finding himself pressed into playing as a No 8, ironically for an injured Duane Vermeulen, at the business end of the 2012 Super Rugby season, where the Stormers finished second on the log but lost in the semifinal stage to the Sharks.
“I do throw in with the other hookers during training just in case I have to move back there in an emergency. I am ready to do that if I have to, and I did help out that way sometimes in France, but I have been playing looseforward for a long time now and I wouldn’t look forward to the soreness of the body that follows a game at hooker.”
That was Fourie talking after captaining the Stormers to a big win over Zebre in Stellenbosch at the start of their winning run. Regular skipper Steven Kitshoff was rested that day, and during the game Andre-Hugo Venter, Scarra Ntubeni’s replacement at hooker, was injured. The Stormers faced a hooker crisis.
It underlined the value that Dobson saw in Fourie’s role as a ball-scavenging No 6 that he preferred to go outside the WP union for hooker reinforcements, for Wilmar Arnoldi of the Cheetahs, rather than press Fourie back into his old position.
QUESTIONS INCREASED AS MOMENTUM WAS GAINED
With each passing week and each game where the Stormers continued to gather momentum on what eventually turned into a record winning run, the questions began to be asked of Fourie: Is it your dream to play for the Boks?
Of course it was his dream, it is every player's dream. But how realistic was it? I have to admit I flinched with embarrassment initially when those questions were asked by fellow journalists, for there was some doubt that even Fourie himself took any chance of making it to the Boks seriously.
But as the Stormers progressed into the playoffs of the URC, so those dreams appeared to become more realistic. Yes, he was in his mid-30s, but he was making such an impact on the URC that even the overseas media were starting to write him up. His stats backed up his Bok claims, and if the Bok selection was to be based on form, he had to be in any extended squad.
When he heard he was to be in the Bok squad for this series against Wales, he was being stitched up in the medical room at the Cape Town Stadium following his team’s exciting, last-gasp win over Ulster in the URC semifinal.
“Every rugby player from the age of four until he retires dreams of being a Springbok and for it to happen to me now just proves that no-one should ever give up their dream,” said Fourie after hearing of his selection for Saturday.
“I am just so honoured to be sitting here talking about it after so long. And it is going to be so special. My family is super excited. My mom is even more emotional about it than me and she will be there, as will my wife and two children, so I am going to have to make sure I keep my emotions in check.”
BIG MOMENT
When more recently he was told he was going to be playing, it would have been as big a moment for Fourie as it was when he was announced in the squad. For selection to the wider group does not always mean a Bok cap, as his currently injured Stormers teammate Scarra Ntubeni will attest: In Ntubeni’s case a Bok cap came a full seven years after he’d first toured with the Boks.
And Fourie reckons it is fitting that his first cap will come in Bloemfontein, for that was where he received his nickname of Brannas, which came about because of his liking for a certain alcoholic beverage in his younger days.
“It is fitting I am making my debut in Bloemfontein because this is where the ‘Brannas’ nickname started. It came at the Bloemfontein airport way back in 2007, but let’s just cut that story short there,” he smiled.
The Fourie story isn’t a story cut short, however, it is a story extended. And with at least two years left in his playing career, there’s no reason to feel he will be following in the footsteps of Muir and Stewart by making a first tour in his mid-30s his swansong. There could even be a World Cup in his future, for Jacques Nienaber doesn’t select players who don’t feature as possible World Cup squad members as the 2023 event in France comes clattering down the tracks towards us.