Marcell Coetzee Bulls loose forward Marcell Coetzee (right) said he was “born with a passion for rugby”. Photo: BackpagePix
Image: BackpagePix
Rub of the Green Column
South African rugby’s sizzling sensation Cameron Hanekom this week made a reverential comment about the “hardebaard” of the Bulls team, Marcell Coetzee.
“I don’t want to disappoint Marcell,” Hanekom said. “He made 31 tackles against Munster. He is my role model.”
The respect with which Hanekom spoke of the 33-year-old Coetzee reminded me of the chapter I wrote on Coetzee in my book, The Fireside Springbok.
I’d like to revisit the “making of Marcell”, because it is by no accident that he is such a special player.
When Coetzee finished high school in 2009 at Port Natal in Durban, there was great excitement about the annual party week at Margate, the pilgrimage for Afrikaans school-leavers all over the country.
Coetzee did not go. He wanted to, but he would be enrolling at the Sharks Academy a month later as a paying student.
He had no bursary or Craven Week credentials, and wanted to give himself an edge.
He went to Pretoria instead, and spent that December training with Jannie Brooks, the former Bulls hooker who runs the Garage Gym.
Coetzee walked into the Sharks Academy fitter than any other student, and by the end of the year, he was training with the Sharks.
He had caught John Plumtree’s eye, and made his Sharks debut against the Brumbies a day before his 20th birthday, having bypassed the Under-21 ranks.
He was that good, whether at No 8, 7 or 6.
“I recall my first day at the Academy,” Coetzee told me in a 2012 interview.
“One of the lecturers said: ‘There are 90 of you here, only one or two might play for the Sharks. Why should it be you?’
“And I sat there smiling and thinking: ‘They have Craven Week, they have bursaries, but I am fitter and hungrier’.”
Missing out on Craven Week was a massive disappointment for Coetzee. He was a casualty of going to the “wrong” school.
As a consequence, he almost took a different career path, not because he is a quitter, but because his family was of modest means.
He had to get a qualification and find a job.
“The plan had been to make rugby my career, provided I secured the stepping stone of Craven Week,” he said.
“So, not making it was a crushing disappointment. I am a big student of our rugby history, and Doc Craven is a legend. It would have meant the world to me.
“When you are not from a glamour school, they always pick the guy from the ‘right’ school because they argue that he has more experience of big games and has BMT. Nonsense like that.”
The plan was for Marcell to go to North West University in Potchefstroom.
His family’s roots are there, and they had moved to the KZN South Coast when Marcell was six.
The family was persuaded to change its decision.
One of Coetzee’s coaches at Port Natal, Roelof Kotze, had joined the coaching staff at the Sharks Academy, and he persuaded the Coetzees to rethink their Potch plan.
“I had coached this kid and was certain that he was Springbok material,” Kotze said.
“I told the family that it was crazy that selectors at school level were being allowed to determine his future. I convinced them to give Marcell a year at the Academy.
“I knew that if he was offered that gap, he would fly through it like Danie Gerber. I had seen his talent and his hunger.
“Heck, this was a kid who went home on the weekends and pulled tractor tyres around the farm to get fitter.”
The Coetzee family live on a farm at Hibberdene on the KZN South Coast. Marcell’s dad runs a security company from the farm.
“But I grew up as a fierce Bulls fan,” he confessed.
“In 2007, I sat in the stands at Kings Park at the Super 14 final with my mates. When the Sharks scored two minutes from time, I felt like walking out. I was so upset.
“But the next two minutes, I can tell you, frame by frame what happened. When Bryan Habana scored (the Bulls’ winning try), I was dancing around in the stands.”
As fate would decree, the Bulls came knocking on Coetzee’s door after his breakthrough season with the Sharks. He loved the Bulls, but he was conflicted.
“It was a tough decision,” he admitted. “I had supported them my whole life, but I had grown a loyalty to the Sharks because of what they’d done for me. I believe in loyalty.”
Coetzee is a man of deep integrity, and he re-signed for the Sharks for the next two years.
As a young Bulls fan, his first hero was the explosive Pierre Spies.
“I liked their brand of rugby, the aggressive, hard running. I admired Pierre Spies. He brought a new dimension to the game with his athleticism and strength,” Coetzee said.
But Coetzee turned out to be more like Bok legend Juan Smith, in the opinion of Swys de Bruin, the former Springbok attack coach.
De Bruin headed the Sharks Academy when Coetzee started there.
De Bruin says: “Within a week, I knew we had a racehorse like our other star products in Clyde Rathbone, Frans Steyn, Bradley Barritt, JP Pietersen, and Patrick Lambie.
“Marcell just soaked up everything. Talent-wise, I would say he is nine out of 10, and closing in on 10 because of his relentless willingness to work on detail.
“He reminds me of a young Juan Smith. His biggest strength is his ball-carrying and ability to launch strongly from the base of the scrum or ruck.
“He plays backwards and forwards with equal ease, and his defence is awesome.”
Coetzee said that by playing rugby, he was living his childhood dream.
“Let me explain it to you this way,” the young Coetzee said.
“In Grade 2, I knew all the names of the Sharks, Bulls and Springbok players, and would recite them to my friends who looked at me blankly and carried on talking about Cartoon Network.
“I was born with a passion for rugby.”
Coetzee debuted for the Springboks at 21. He would play 28 of his 31 Tests before his 25th birthday.
It was a massive disappointment for him when he was left out of the 2015 World Cup squad for an emerging flank named Siya Kolisi.
Coetzee left South Africa to spend four seasons at Ulster.
At the end of 2021, he returned to South Africa to fulfil his childhood dream of playing for the Bulls.
How fitting that Coetzee is currently leading a Bulls team that could go all the way in the United Rugby Championship.
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