The Cell C Sharks announced a clutch of contract extensions on Twitter on Monday, but it was the announcement that Lionel Cronje is returning from Japan that should be the biggest talking point in Durban rugby circles.
Cronje will turn 33 next week and after impressing as a youngster when he represented the South African under-20 side while he was studying in Bloemfontein, he’s had a bit of a journeyman career. Both those points will be forwarded by those who question the Sharks’ decision to recruit him.
After playing for the national age-group side, he impressed the then Stormers coach Rassie Erasmus enough to be lured to the Cape from the Cheetahs for the 2010 and 2011 seasons.
He did play some good games for the Stormers and Western Province, but he played behind Peter Grant, who was a stalwart at the Cape franchise at the time, and he also never really seemed to settle into what was then a very structured and defensive orientated Stormers game plan (in 2011).
He also struggled with injuries and his lack of momentum meant it was little surprise when at the end of 2011 he moved to Pretoria to play for the Bulls. He didn’t last there and popped up at the Emirates Lions the following year. Again, it was a shortlived stay, but Jake White must have seen something in the youngster as he recruited Cronje to the Brumbies in Australia.
Cronje followed White to Durban when the former Springbok coach took up the position of director of rugby at the Sharks, but again there were players in front of him and if you ever speak to Cronje about it, he would probably tell you that was a very low point of his career and he effectively gave up rugby before being lured to the Southern Kings in 2017.
It was his stint in Port Elizabeth in what was actually a very impressive 2017 season in Super Rugby for the Eastern Cape franchise that showed us what Cronje could do.
He had matured by then to the extent that he was the Kings’ captain, with their wins in Pretoria over the Bulls and in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) against the Sharks being highlights, while there were also some good wins in Australia.
One Sharks player who should welcome Cronje’s arrival is Makazole Mapimpi. It was during that 2017 season, playing in a backline that fed off Cronje’s good decision making and mature head, that the Springbok World Cup winner made his breakthrough.
But Mapimpi shouldn’t be the only Sharks backline player that will welcome Cronje’s return to the Durban franchise. When Cronje was drafted into the Sharks Currie Cup team on loan in 2021 he made a notable difference, and his willingness to attack the gainline and take on opposition defenders makes him a direct contrast to the other top flyhalves on the Sharks’ books like Curwin Bosch and Tito Bonilla.
Bosch has improved in recent weeks as he rides a wave of confidence that the dominant Sharks pack has helped create for him, but he is a confidence player, and the Sharks coaches probably know that a setback that will see the former South African Schools player lose confidence revert to his habit of playing from the pocket is never too far beyond the horizon.
When Cronje was first reintroduced to the Sharks in the 2021 season was actually in the franchise’s hastily rearranged second fixture against the British and Irish Lions at Loftus last July. Bosch had been shown up in the Lions’ big win in the first game, but in the Sharks’ highly competitive first half in Pretoria, Cronje’s playing style made a noticeable difference to the team’s attacking effectiveness.
And it will be the memory of what he did then and in the Currie Cup games he played before returning to Japan, where he played for White and Gert Smal’s former team, Toyota Verblitz, that would have prompted the Sharks to bring him back to Durban.
No, he isn’t the big name flyhalf signing many Sharks fans might have been hoping for, but the matured Cronje is a player that they should be able to rely on to step in and be the catalyst for an improved and more synchronised attacking game if, or when, the current incumbent falls back into his old habits. He definitely does strengthen the Sharks’ flyhalf stocks and his playing strengths are needed by the Sharks, meaning that there has been more science to this recruitment than there has been to some other Sharks acquisitions.
Cronje has signed until 2024, while locks Reniel Hugo and Emile van Heerden have signed contract extensions that will lock them into the Sharks until 2025. The other player to have signed a contract extension is Springbok tourist Grant Williams who completes a strong group of scrumhalves.
