Durban - It is official. Francois Phillipus Lodewyk Steyn has the longest Springbok career of them all, having recently overtaken Victor Matfield and Os Du Randt, and what a journey it has been for the precocious ‘lightie’ way back in 2006 to the ‘hardebaard’ of 2022.
The 35-year-old’s career now spans 15 years and 310 days since he debuted on the left wing for Jake White’s Boks against Ireland at the now demolished Landsdowne Road Stadium in Dublin.
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, he scored a try almost immediately — he was the youngest player to debut for the Boks in the modern era (19 years, 181 days), a record he still holds —and in his first seven matches for South Africa, he would score three tries and kick four drop goals.
The young Steyn was simply irrepressible and he scorched to 50 caps for South Africa in record-breaking time, that milestone arriving against Argentina in Cape Town in 2012. He was just 25.
The question, then, is why is he “only” on 77 caps ten years later? The problem is that often a fierce flame is deemed to burn too brightly by some and they attempt to snuff it out, and not once but twice Steyn fell foul of the Springbok hierarchy — first coach Peter de Villiers decided in 2011 that Steyn was too pushy about the position he wanted to play and then SA Rugby and Steyn fell out over a contract issue in 2014.
That was when Heyneke Meyer was the coach and I recall the Boks being in Durban preparing for a Test against Wales, with Steyn in the mix for the first time in two years, when he suddenly got into his car and sped off in a rage and into what would be five years in the international wilderness.
The issue was medical insurance for the Paris-based Steyn and he and SA Rugby could not agree on terms. There were many who pointed a finger at the “hot-headed” Steyn but his friends will testify that he is an intensely private man who is not driven in the least by ego and is a man of strong principles.
In fact, Steyn shuns fame and has always ducked the media spotlight. However, he always stands up for his beliefs and to this day he is adamant he was right in that spat with SA Rugby, which had the unfortunate bottom line of isolation from his beloved Boks for half a decade.
But let’s go back to the beginning…
Steyn comes from farming stock in Aliwal North in the Eastern Cape and his father sent him to the Grey College rugby cathedral in Bloemfontein. It was while at that famous rugby nursery that he watched Jannie de Beer on television kicking five drop goals against England at the Stade de France to propel the Boks into the semi-finals of the 1999 World Cup.
The youngster was inspired and he spent endless hours practicing drop goals and goal kicking on the school fields, and he would indeed one day win Test matches for South Africa with his kicking brilliance.
One occasion that springs to mind was when he came on as a substitute at Newlands against the Wallabies in 2007 and from the touchline, he nailed two incredible drops at the death to defeat George Gregan’s team.
Steyn joined the Sharks straight from school and the momentous contribution they made to South African rugby was to send Steyn to the IRANZ Rugby Academy in New Zealand run by All Blacks legend Murray Mexted.
There he was schooled in backline play by the great All Blacks flyhalf, Grant Fox, who also refined Steyn’s goal-kicking.
I recall well in 2009 Fox being quoted in the Kiwi media after Steyn had kicked three mammoth penalty goals to spearhead the Boks’ Tri-Nations win in Hamilton.
Fox said wryly of Steyn, who was christened the “rocket launcher” by the local media: “I did too good a job!”
But it has not all been sunshine and roses for Steyn. No Sharks fan will forget his impetuosity in the 2007 Super 12 final in Durban when he fluffed an easy conversion attempt of Albert van den Berg’s try. The kick should have been taken by Butch James but Steyn rushed up and grabbed the ball in a state of youthful exuberance, and then rushed the kick, and from the restart, the Bulls scored the seven-pointer they needed to seize the spoils.
Not long ago, Steyn admitted that he still has the occasional sleepless night because of that rush of blood to the head.
But later in 2007, Steyn’s despair exploded into ecstasy when he was chosen to replace injured Jean de Villiers in the Boks’ World Cup team and he nailed a crucial long-range penalty in the victorious final to redeem himself.
Incidentally, I vividly recall the teenage Steyn erupting in indignation at that World Cup when a Tongan player accused him of biting. Callow he might have been at just 19 but having had his integrity questioned, he let the experienced Tongan player know in no uncertain terms how he felt in a heated hearing. The accusation was thrown out.
The sensitive side of Steyn was also illustrated in 2013 when he suffered a serious calf injury playing for the Sharks against the Highlanders in Dunedin. He was taken to the hospital in excruciating pain, suggesting that there had been a fracture, but X-rays showed no break.
The doctors diagnosed “compartment syndrome”, which is heavy pressure build-up in a limb, and he had emergency surgery at 2.30am to save his leg.
He would spend three weeks alone in a hospital in the isolated South Island city and he later described that period devoid of friendly faces as the saddest of his life, at that stage.
Steyn has certainly had his ups and downs in a roller-coaster career that will screech to a halt in Paris at next year’s World Cup where he will be bidding for a third gold medal — no player in the history of the game has won three World Cups.
Steyn last week mentioned that at the beginning of his career “I had to sit so far in front of the team bus I was practically on the steps.” Fifteen years and 77 Tests later, and having played every position in the backline for the Boks apart from scrumhalf, he owns the bus!
IOL Sport