“It’s a once in a lifetime experience.”
Every Irish rugby player that has toured South Africa, at schools, club, underage or professional level, will tell you how ingrained in the culture the sport of rugby is. How a tour in the land of Springboks, Sharks and Griquas can be a life-changing experience.
Back in 2016, Joe Schmidt took an injury-hit Ireland squad to South Africa and began to shape his second incarnation of a team that would go on to win a Grand Slam some 20 months later. As many that tour the country will attest to, playing rugby in South Africa can break you or make you. Either way, the tour will always stay with you.
Earlier this week, former Sharks and South African star Etienne Fynn arrived in Ireland and toured some of Ireland’s top rugby schools, extending an invitation for their teams to tour his homeland and take on some of the local sides.
Fynn, who now runs the Sharks’ academy in Durban, has teamed up with Dublin-based company DBS Rugby Tours to offer young Irish players and schools teams the chance to travel to his academy and develop their skills and, while they are there, experience the culture and take on some local sides.
St Munchins, Castletroy, Roscrea, St Michael’s, CBC Monkstown, Clongowes and Blackrock College were all visited during the five-day trip and Fynn is hopeful that the schools will strongly consider sending teams to South Africa in the coming years. Fynn told SportsJOE:
“We want to build strong associations with Ireland’s top rugby schools in order to get them out, and to get them to experience the Sharks and the South African rugby way. The environment and rugby history is quite unique.”
Fynn toured Ireland with the Springboks back in 2000. He was a late call-up to the squad so did not make the match-day 22 but he did get to watch a South African side containing the likes of Joost van der Westhuizen, Percy Montgomery, John Smit and Chester Williams beat Ireland 28-18 a ‘the old Lansdowne Road’. He made his Boks debut the following year and took on the likes of France and Italy.
After hanging up his boots with the Sharks, he moved on to help with their academy and eventually became managing director. Asked what gives him the greatest satisfaction working with young rugby talents, he says:
“It’s a bit clichéd but I call it ‘The lightbulb moment’! Any coach or anyone who has worked with young people will know that it is when he actually grasps the concept of what you’ve been trying to tell him for a while. He has his own lightbulb moment.
“It happens with different youngsters at different stages. It could be a week for one player and it could be a year with another but when they get it, it is incredibly rewarding. What is also is rewarding is when they often come back a year or two – sometimes five – years after they have gone and say, ‘Hey, thanks. You helped me’.”
The former tighthead says the Sharks academy and DBS will look to cater to the needs of any Irish school interested in sending a team down to South Africa. Generally, though, the trips could take place in the summer and feature a three-day camp at the academy where the team can work on a number of areas of their game for the season ahead, outings to local schools, wildlife parks, beaches and, of course, some tests against ‘Tier One’ South African sides.
“The younger you are exposed to different cultures and environments and different ways of life,” says Fynn, “I think the more balanced your outcome becomes to the world. We all tend to create bubbles and we’re not exposed to worldliness, and you realise, the older you get, that it is all about relationships and how to you treat people, liaise and communicate with them. To learn that at 17, 18 or 19 is an incredible gift.”
Fynn believes South African rugby will always have to face losing many of their stars to the lucrative leagues in Europe and Japan but as long as the country’s academy system stays strong, the national team should challenge all the world’s top nations.
As for European talents, such as undiscovered Irish stars, going in the opposite direction, well, why not?
“By all means,” he says, “rugby is a global game. The Sharks have had guys like Freddie Michalak and Olivier Roumat play for them before. There’s no reason why they couldn’t have an O’Grady or Smith!”
More on DBS Rugby Tours and the Sharks Academy can be found here.
