Jon Henderson Rugby
Fritz van Heerden, Leicester’s Springbok lock, has taken to English life. He starts each working day with the 10km drive in from Little Stretton, a tiny village to the east of London where he is a regular church-goer. “I like it there very much,” he says. “It’s so quiet and peaceful.”
Having left this rural idyll, Van Heerden joins another cluster of venerable structures that has become part of the national heritage, the Leicester pack – Rowntree, Cockerill, Garforth and Johnson, a doughty gathering that in another age might have been King Henry V’s “band of brothers” at Agincourt. Again Van Heerden is impressed, although it would be hard not to be.
“What I’ve particularly appreciated is being part of a really good pack of forwards,” he says just before his team trounced Newcastle 21-12 in their Allied Dunbar Premiership-clinching match last weekend. “I know you can’t achieve what we have at Leicester with just a powerful pack, and I wouldn’t say the forwards have won it on their own. Definitely, though, the forwards are the strong point of our game.”
But Van Heerden’s admiration of all things English will not stop him returning to South Africa shortly to try to regain his Springbok place. And if he succeeds he will be back in October bent on World Cup supremacy.
Like many big men, the 105kg, 1,9m Van Heerden is a deceptively quiet presence off the field, aware that his sheer bulk gives him all the assertiveness he needs. On the field, there is no question that he can look after himself. In June 1997, the Lions accused him of splitting Tim Rodber’s eye open with a pedigree punch during the second Test in Durban.
Van Heerden made his Springbok debut in 1994 as a flanker and has played most of his 13 internationals on the side of the scrum. He switched to second row on the Springbok tour of France and Argentina late in 1996.
“The law changes after the last World Cup didn’t really suit my type of flank forward,” he says. “Having to stay bound to the side of the scrum meant flankers had to become more mobile and the lifting in the line-outs made tall loose forwards less essential.”
He came to Leicester in November 1997, reportedly sacrificing his place in the Springbok side because of a ruling that players going overseas would be ignored. He says, though, that the rule had not been finalised when he left and that anyway he was only on the fringe of the international side at the time.
Whatever the facts of the case, Van Heerden (28) says he has absolutely no regrets about his decision to join the Tigers. “I had played for Western Province since 1991 and I was keen for a move,” he says. “It’s been brilliant, especially now we have more or less won the championship. If your team plays well it makes the enjoyment so much more.”
Now, though, his attention is turning to the World Cup. “After the season here, I’m going home, firstly to try to win a place in the Western Province team and, if everything goes well, I might get a place in the squad for the World Cup. I definitely can’t take anything for granted, but if I play well I presume they will consider me.”
Springbok coach Nick Mallett has said he’ll consider any of the overseas-based South African players who return for the domestic season. “Any players who return and take part in this year’s Currie Cup, as Fritz van Heerden and Brendan Venter are planning on doing, have a chance of being selected in the World Cup squad,” he said.
And who does he expect to win the World Cup? “I think the top four are the three southern hemisphere nations and England, with Wales and Scotland close behind. I think on their day each one of these could beat the other, especially with the tournament being played in the United Kingdom in October when the rain and heavy weather will be an advantage for the local sides.”
It promises to be rousing stuff, a world away from the quiet life in Little Stretton.