The Vodacom United Rugby Championship is a field of dreams, and not just for youngsters.
When Marco van Staden faces off against Deon Fourie in Pretoria on Saturday, this sentiment will be further enforced.
In 2022 Deon Fourie became the oldest Springbok debutant, at 35 years old, off the back of a spectacular season for the DHL Stormers which culminated in them beating the Vodacom Bulls, in Cape Town, to win the inaugural Vodacom United Rugby Championship title.
When the Vodacom Bulls host the DHL Stormers at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, Fourie will battle a player nine years his junior, in Marco van Staden.
Van Staden’s career trajectory to Test rugby was vastly different to that of Fourie’s. At the start of 2018, Van Staden was playing for Tuks in the Varsity Cup, by the end of that year he had made his Springboks debut.
The Vodacom Bulls flanker became the first South African rugby player to play at university, franchise and international level in a single year. Despite bursting onto the Test scene at the end of 2018, Van Staden would miss out on a ticket to the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
In 2021, Van Staden headed north for a short, but unfruitful spell with Leicester Tigers, where he struggled with concussions and very little game time. After being released by the Tigers at the beginning of 2022, the opensider was offered a lifeline to return home to the Vodacom Bulls, and he responded with performances of such a standard that it earned him a Springbok recall for the end-of-year tour.
“In rugby, injuries happen to all of us. You can either sulk and think the world has come down on your or you can see it as an opportunity to come out of that injury as a better, stronger rugby player and person.”
In his rugby adventure, Fourie has spent considerably more time in Europe than Van Staden. The veteran utility forward began his career at DHL Western Province in 2006, and went on to play in some star-studded DHL Stormers sides.
In 2014, Fourie moved to France where he enjoyed seven successful years between Lyon and Grenoble. Despite Fourie’s success in France, it took him to return to South Africa in 2021, and express his skillset in the Vodacom URC, to illicit interest from the Springbok management. Within a year he was finally a Test-capped Springbok.
“Seven years ago when I went overseas, I put any hope of the Boks on the backburner,” Fourie told the South African media.
“Every rugby player from the age of four until he retires dreams of playing for the Boks, and for it to happen to me at last just proves that people should never give up on their dreams.”
Fourie, can play hooker, flank and No 8, and has been one of John Dobson’s most important squad members as the DHL Stormers coach has built a culture of success with a young and talented group.
Equally, Van Staden is central to the way in which the Vodacom Bulls play, and is consistently proving that there is a lot more rugby left in him than many believed at the beginning of last year.
Both players, polarised in their path to Test rugby, and each at a very different stage of their respective careers, are proving equally impactful in their current contexts, and find themselves vying for space in the Springbok squad in a World Cup year.
Come Saturday, the heart of the Vodacom URC match will be the breakdown where Fourie and Van Staden will dictate terms as they strive towards making their Rugby World Cup debut.
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Rugby is a team game played with an oval ball that may be kicked, carried, and passed from hand to hand. Points are scored by grounding the ball behind the opponents’ goal line (thereby scoring a try) or by kicking it between the two posts and over the crossbar of the opponents’ goal.
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