When Damian de Allende made an error that saw him penalised towards the end of the 2013 Currie Cup final between Western Province and the Sharks at Newlands, a prominent South African coach said to a journalist “I will say just one thing - Milnerton High”.
The name of that coach, who was from a union not involved in the final, will not be disclosed here as what he said wasn’t intended for publication. It is repeated here though because it neatly encapsulates a type of thinking in schools rugby in this country that might have denied South Africa quite a few players that could have become great Springboks.
If you are not from one of the established rugby schools you have much less chance of making it, particularly in the Western Cape. And De Allende, who is now arguably the best inside centre in world rugby, might not have made it were it not for his Milnerton High coach Heinrich Martin, better known to those who know him as Coach Bobby.
“Damian was a stand out wherever he went when he was at school, he had exceptional skill and combined with that he had above average strength,” recalls Martin of his years coaching De Allende in 2009 and 2010.
“He had a very good kicking foot on him in those days too, he hardly missed when kicking at poles. He was also an enforcer, with astounding carrying ability, and to cap that he was also a great distributor. He could pass equally well to the left and the right, it was rare for a kid that age to be able to do both.
“When I first saw him at school he was under-16. I was involved with the Tygerberg club at the time and I took an immediate interest in him, his ability to distribute was next level. He was a good schoolboy cricketer, so his hands were very good. I told him then, at one of our first meetings, that he would become a Springbok.”
BEING AT AN UNFASHIONABLE SCHOOL HELD HIM BACK
However, and here’s what made De Allende’s rise through the rugby ranks different to some of his contemporaries, for all that ability and stand-out play, he did not make the Western Province Schools team.
“The curious thing was that he did make WP Schools, but just not at rugby. He made the WP Schools cricket team,” said his schoolboy coach.
“I will tell you why that was. There was one word for it: Politics.”
When you mention politics in the Western Cape sporting context, and in particular when applied to rugby across all levels during a certain era, it has a different meaning to what it might have in other parts of the country. In the Cape the word politics can be applied, or certainly did a few decades ago, to the rivalry between English and Afrikaans, Stellenbosch and Cape Town, the northern suburbs and the southern suburbs.
I remember 2019 World Cup-winning Bok Francois Louw telling me that he didn’t play WP Schools because, although he himself was an Afrikaans speaker and related to the legendary late former Bok lock and WP rugby administrator Jan Pickard, he went to an English school in the southern suburbs.
ADAMS PROVIDED DAMIAN WITH HIS OPPORTUNITY
Milnerton, still coached by Martin, who has been in charge of the first team for 15 years, have just experienced a breakout season, and they knocked over top schools like Rondebosch, but back then it was an unfashionable rugby school. That held De Allende back. At least at schools level it did, because Martin did something during De Allende’s matric year that effectively kick-started his career.
“Damian never played Craven Week but in 2010, he played Currie Cup under-19 and that was where his journey started with Siya (Kolisi), Scarra (Ntubeni), Eben Etzebeth, Frans Malherbe, Steven Kitshoff and the special players who came out of the WP Academy that year. While they were at the academy, Damian was still at school.
“What happened was that after Damian never made it into the WP Schools team, I took him to Nazeem Adams, the WP under-19 coach, and asked him to take a look at him. The under-19 team was not part of the school system, but I said to Nazeem, ‘Please give this guy a chance’. So Nazeem let him play in some trial games, and he ended up playing in every WP under-19 game after that. He played all the league games and the play-off games. WP won the competition.
“I knew he’d make it away from schools interference and prejudices. We did it out of school and I will always be grateful to Nazeem for giving Damian that opportunity. Sometimes you just need a chance and to be seen by the right people. I didn’t ask favours from anyone, I just asked Nazeem to give the kid a chance. Damian has repaid the faith shown in him by going on to become one of the greatest international centres.”
RASSIE IS BLIND TO SCHOOL PREJUDICE
Martin reckons that current Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus’ blindness to school prejudices is part of the reason why South African rugby has become so successful during his tenure.
“Some of the Bok coaches before Rassie were believers in the lie that big Boks have to come from big rugby schools, but not Rassie. In the World Cup quarterfinal last year the four try scorers were all from unfashionable rugby schools. Cheslin Koble was from Brackenfell, Kurt-Lee Arendse from Paulus Joubert in Paarl, Eben was from Tygerberg and of course Damian from Milnerton.
“That’s one of Rassie’s big strengths, he sees the man and not the background. It is why he talks about the players who won the World Cup all being tough because they had to fight hard to make it. The guys from smaller schools had to fight harder to make it,” says Martin.
“And that was the case with Damian, he understood what it is to be under pressure from a young age. He had to fight hard for what he wanted.”
Fighting to be recognised and to make it might have been what honed what Martin describes as the incredible work ethic that De Allende had from a very young age.
“What I remember about Damian at school was that he was extremely competitive at training sessions. He had a good sense of humour, he was always jokey, he liked to tease his mates and away from the field he was very laid back. But when he stepped onto the training field he just became so focused and turned into a work horse.
“When it came to shuttles he always wanted to be the best. He had a burning desire to succeed and that was his drive. He just never gave up, in any situation, and he hated losing. It was one of the main reasons why we (Milnerton) were quite successful when he was playing first team.
“He’s also immensely proud of his school. He was off last week when the rest of the Boks went to Argentina, so he came to the school and attended a prize giving. He spent hours afterwards being photographed with the kids. That’s just the way he is. He is very passionate and proud of where he comes from.
“I think that is why he is successful, he embraces his past and is not shy of his past. That is what motivates him to do well. We’ve just had a really good season at the school and when we beat Rondebosch and some of the other bigger schools I sent him clips of the games. And damn, he reacted so emotionally to it. He told me when he was here that when he retires he wants to join me in setting up something that will be meaningful in giving more Milnerton boys a chance of making it like he has.”
NOT ALWAYS PLAIN SAILING
He has made it, but while it is hard to believe now, it wasn’t always plain sailing for De Allende after he first burst onto the senior provincial rugby firmament in South Africa in the 2012 Currie Cup final in Durban. The then WP coach Allister Coetzee caused quite a stir when he selected the very green De Allende, who had only played a few games on the wing, at centre for that final, which WP won thanks to a brilliant individualistic game-changing try from Juan de Jongh.
Three years later, and just five after he failed to make the WP Schools team, De Allende was an integral part of the Bok fightback from the seismic opening defeat to Japan at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England. After the loss in Brighton, the coach, Heyneke Meyer, went conservative, taking on the mantra of “we’ll do whatever it takes”, and that required De Allende to act almost exclusively as an enforcer who’d get the forwards onto the front foot by taking the ball up.
His designated role meant he did not pass the ball, and while he had a brilliant World Cup, the playing style he was part of meant he was pilloried by some critics who maligned him on the basis of a perception that he was a limited player.
Nothing was further from the truth, and the new Bok attack coach, Tony Brown, was far from the first to recognise De Allende’s superb passing skills, which he espoused at an early press conference, describing the No 12 as the best passer in the Bok team.
Robbie Fleck, a former Bok centre himself and a very good one too, was often frustrated when he was coaching WP and the Stormers at the perceptions around De Allende, a player he knew well as he was working with Adams when he coached the under-19 team in 2010.
In early 2019, when De Allende’s form was being questioned, Fleck was adamant that people “shouldn’t put Damian in a box”, and predicted the upward trend that De Allende’s career path has taken subsequently.
“Everyone has labelled him and put him in a box, saying he is just this one-dimensional player who only gets across the advantage line,” said Fleck.
“Look, he does do that, there’s no doubt about that, and because he is so strong he is very good at that. It is definitely a strength of his. But there are certain subtleties to his game and certain skill elements that people don’t recognise and appreciate enough. He is one of the best passers in the game. When he gets a bit of time and space, he is really good at putting his outside backs away.
“I guess he has been playing to a certain game-plan, but when he plays his game he has the physicality and beautiful subtleties to his game that don’t often get recognised.”
LOVING THE NEW WAY
De Allende hasn’t been playing to the “certain game-plan” in recent times, and even less so since the arrival of New Zealander Brown as the Bok attack coach. What Brown wants isn’t new to him, as he had already been exposed to the Kiwi way of thinking when he worked with both Brown and former Crusaders Super Rugby winning coach Robbie Deans in Japan. There they understood the need to get the team out of pressure situations by taking the ball up to the gainline and thus creating front foot ball, but also impressed on him that if he passed more he’d take less tackles.
De Allende says he is loving the freedom he has been given to express his skills in this first season of the new World Cup cycle.
“There is no pressure on me when it comes to my passing, it is something I have been working on my whole career,” said De Allende in the buildup to the recent clash with the All Blacks in Cape Town.
“We are just getting used to it much more than was the case in the past (at Bok level). It is fun. The coaches and the playing group are moving in the right direction. We need to be challenging and testing the boundaries and more dynamic than other teams. That is how we will stay ahead of the rest.
“I will make mistakes along the way, like I did in Johannesburg (All Black centre Jordie Barrett scored a try after intercepting a De Allende pass), but if we are patient and we get to where we want to be we will be formidable. “
However, his love of the passing game doesn’t mean that De Allende regrets the role he had to play previously.
“It is nice to be playing the passing game, and I think the changes have given us older players a new lease on life, but it was never my role just to carry the ball up. It was just in terms of the game and momentum swings and the need to get the forwards on the front foot I had to get my head in there.
“At my age it is nice to pass but I will still do the hard graft. It is just that you will see me pass a few times more and hopefully the backs score more tries, beautiful tries.”
Although he is taking each year as it comes, De Allende hopes to be part of a fourth World Cup campaign in Australia in 2027, and if the Boks develop in the way he expects them to, they will be in with a great chance of retaining their World Cup trophy. It will make De Allende a triple World Cup winner - not bad for a guy from Milnerton High!