Saracens’ challenge is as big as any of my Tests for South Africa, says Burger
Despite being double European champions the club are clear underdogs, writes Mick Cleary
Schalk Burger, the former Springbok flanker, has faced down some challenges in his time, notably staring across the halfway line as the All Blacks performed the haka during a 12-year international career, so it is quite a measure of what awaits Saracens at the Aviva Stadium tomorrow when the back-row forward compares the size of his team’s task to anything he faced in the green shirt of South Africa.
There is a relish in the words of Burger when he describes the enthusiasm for the job in hand, very much in keeping with the scar-laced, unremitting, noquarter-given-or-expected performances he has put in down the years. His upbeat, defiant tone fits the Saracens ethos. For Burger, read Brad Barritt, back into training only hours after having a titanium plate fitted into a fractured cheekbone, men of resolve and commitment to the cause. Few believe that Saracens, despite being back-to-back defending champions, can topple Leinster, the only unbeaten side in the tournament. Tellingly, that sizeable minority includes the entire Saracens’ squad.
“The biggest thing for me with South Africa was not to let the jersey down, our jersey and that of the opponent, just don’t disappoint the All Black either,” said Burger. “Leinster are expecting us to come over and be very competitive out there and I think we should do that. For sure [I liken this to a Test match]. This is a similar challenge. You invest so much emotional time and energy being with your club. There are a lot of good mates here. And the big thing for mates is that they pull together and put in a performance representative of Saracens and what we stand for.”
That desire to produce a high-octane Saracens showing has not always delivered the goodies this season, notably when they hit a seven-match losing streak towards the turn of the year, a slump that included what Burger calls “a thunderbolt moment”, the 46-14 Champions Cup loss at home to Clermont Auvergne. Saracens have made it this far, reaching the knockout stages for the seventh year in succession, only by the skin of their teeth. Burger, though, believes that such profound setbacks can be a cleansing, and hence galvanising, experience. Remember, this is a man who was part of the South Africa side who lost to Japan in the 2015 Rugby World Cup yet recovered to make the semi-finals.
“It would have been easy to disintegrate [either in Brighton or post-clermont], but it was nice to
‘It would have been easy to disintegrate, but it was nice to stick in and put in hard work together’
stick in and put in hard work together,” said Burger. “That was a high-pressure situation but when a team is not playing well, that’s when you have to really graft to find the edge and relocate that formula that made you successful. It’s a nice process. That Clermont game was a turning point.”
It would seem that way.
For all their travails and injuries, Saracens are second in the Aviva Premiership and are the only English club in the quarter-finals. If they were to upset the odds then they would be rewarded with a ‘home’ semi-final at the Ricoh Arena.
In the absence of several prominent players, such as
No8 Billy Vunipola, Burger has become an influential figure, as much for his persona as for his on-field playing presence. He is 35 next month (and has signed a contract extension through to June 2019) but still plays with the fervour, if not quite the pace, of his youth, when his blond thatch and often blood-spattered features were an arresting sight.
Burger has fond memories of Dublin, as much for the late-night Guinness haunts, for he tends to approach the post-match with the same zeal as he attacks a game, first playing against Ireland at Lansdowne Road in 2004 and also recalling a try he scored at Croke Park in 2009. “It was a sensitive try because it was just after the Lions tour to South Africa,” said Burger, who had been arraigned during that series for an eye-gouging incident involving Ireland wing Luke Fitzgerald. “We always had battles against Ireland. Everyone underestimates how physical they are.”
Burger will be back home in Cape Town when England round off their three-test series at Newlands. He expects the Springboks to be ‘buzzing’ under new coach Rassie Erasmus, expressing the belief that South Africa “has more than enough talent to become a good side again”. Burger’s focus, though, is wholly on Saracens, a commitment he made to himself when signing almost two years ago even though he could have taken up a contract in Japan for an easier ride. Apart from bemoaning the English weather – “Jeez, I’ve never played so little golf in my life” – he has fulfilled his side of the bargain with typically wholehearted displays.
Saracens will need all of that to cause an upset. “For us, it is a clean slate,” said Burger.
On which anything is possible.