Heinke van der Merwe won two Heineken Cups with the Irish province in 2011 and 2012.
Murray Kinsella Reports from Durban OUR MEETING POINT is the coffee shop in Glenwood High School in Durban and we should have known that even this spot would have a rugby theme.
Class is in session but there’s a group of boys in Up and Under, all of whom turn to say, “Good morning, sir” and offer assistance before they turn back to the TV, which is showing a rerun of the All Blacks’ win over England last weekend. That was a fruitful spell for the province as they won back-to-back Heineken Cup trophies under Joe Schmidt and added a Pro12 title.
“South African schools rugby is almost professional at this stage,” says van der Merwe. “It’s next level in that schoolboys are getting identified from the age of 12, 13, or 14 and everyone tracks them.” “It’s nice to have that but a lot of the kids like to think they have made it if an agent comes to them and tells them they want to work with them.
Eli was born in Dublin and enjoys supporting South Africa and Ireland. He’s a hooker and when he’s asked who his favourite player is, he says Malcolm Marx and Dan Sheehan.“We loved everything about Ireland,” says van der Merwe of their time in Ireland. “We stayed in Rathfarnham close to Marley Park so we would take the kids there a lot. The Irish people are friendly people.”
“He said, ‘Family is all you have and it’s very important, so just see if everything’s fine and come to training the next day.’ He had a good relationship with everyone.” “It was unheard of to come back from that kind of margin. The celebrations were special, I’ll always cherish that.”Leinster beat Ulster well in 2012 at Twickenham and it was extra special for van der Merwe because his father, Schalk, made the trip from South Africa to watch it.
He admired how Leinster had their pipeline in order, with Josh van der Flier and Tadhg Furlong among the big academy prospects during his time with the province.“He’s still playing, I can’t believe he’s still going!” says van der Merwe.
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