Lood and Eben bring muscle into the side
COMBINED, Springbok locks Eben Etzebeth and Lood de Jager are 4.08m tall and weigh a whopping 242kg, but that’s only a small part of their menace, which is about to be unleashed on Ireland.
The Bok second rowers are fearsome physical specimens and they are also fearless competitors. Anyone who witnessed their set-to when the Stormers and the Cheetahs clashed eight days ago will understand.
Etzebeth and De Jager wrestling and grappling each other, like two buffalo, was unedifying but also telling. When it comes to business, all feelings are put aside. It’s “mano y mano” for the benefit of the team and fortunately for South Africa, these two will be in Springbok colours against Ireland for the next three weekends.
Although the perception is that they are both brawn and little brain, those perceptions are misleading.
The pair started together four times at last year’s World Cup and were a titanic force. Etzebeth, despite a reputation for being the enforcer, is a skilled player with a high work rate.
He has missed five weeks of the Stormers’ 2016 campaign with a calf muscle injury and is ominously fresher now, as Ireland loom.
“I’ve been unlucky in Super Rugby, having been injured several times,” Etzebeth says.
“But I’ve been fortunate to be fit for the test rugby every year since 2012. Still, it was a pity I was injured this year, but I see it as a positive to getting over niggles.
“I try to improve with every game and if it works that’s great, if not I’ll try harder and do something extra. Basically I try to contribute in a way that the coaches want me to.”
De Jager is equally physical but he also possesses a great rugby brain. He took on the responsibility of running the Bok lineout last year, in addition to marauding across the park. By his own admission he has not been at his best this season, but he is edging closer.
“I’m not in the form I want to be in now,” De Jager said before the Stormers match.
“But when I pull the Bok jersey over my head, I’m a different person. I can’t explain how much of a lift donning that jersey gives me.”