South Africa have missed this man dearly since he packed his bags and headed off on the lucrative club rugby circuit.
Pierre Spies is an absolute specimen.
Back in his Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool (school) days, he played alongside future Springboks such as as Fourie du Preez and Wyand Oliver. His immense physicality and destructive ball-carrying abilities marked him out as an international prospect in his teenage years.
He made his Super Rugby debut at 19, with the Bulls, and his Test debut a week after his 21st birthday. He was the not-so-secret Springbok weapon for the 2007 World Cup until injury intervened. However, he made a full recovery and tormented the Lions in the 2009 Test Series.
Shutting down a David Wallace charge in 2009.He finally made it to a World Cup, in 2011, but his country’s exit marked the beginning of the end of his Test career. He only featured in six more games for the Boks with his final appearance coming back in 2013. He stuck around for a while longer before Japan’s Top League came calling with a hefty pay deal. A move to Montpellier followed in 2016.
Throughout his rugby journey, Spies has kept himself in some truly incredible shape.
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His gym stats are mightily impressive – he can power clean 140kg, dead-lift 240kg and box-jump 1.4 metres. His body percentage was tallied at 6.5% at the peak of his Test powers and he can do pull-ups with a 50kg weight fixed between his legs.
He’s a handy lad to clean up after training too.
According to his Montpellier teammates, Spies is a gym-rat and a demon for extras. It certainly shows.
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Irish rugby fans may have seen Spies in action as recently as January when he rolled into town with a Montpellier side that had won the 2015/16 Challenge Cup. The French side did not fare well at the RDS as Leinster shredded them on their way to the Champions Cup knock-out stages.
Montpellier are in the hunt for Top 14 honours and Spies continues to grind. Still, like any good Christian, he took some time out for one of the most important days of the year…
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