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Ex-Springbok revisits Kamp Staaldraad nightmare: 'It was crazy... the soldiers even fired two bullets on the ground'

(Photo by Jonathon Wood/Getty Images)

Springbok rugby was restored to the pedestal of being the best in the world last November with South Africa’s World Cup final win over England in Yokohama. The world reacted graciously, hailing a triumph where the Boks were inspirationally skippered by Siya Kolisi, their racially uniting captain.

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The victory crowned them as world champions for the third time in seven tournaments, but the memory of preparing for one of their more disastrous campaigns has never left one ex-Springbok who now lives in the wilds of Costa Rica. 

Now 39 years old, Joe van Niekerk earned the last of his 52 South African caps in 2010 before finishing his club career at Toulon in 2014. He has since embraced a new-age lifestyle in the Costa Rican jungle, buying a piece of land to make it into a huge organic farm. 

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Mako Vunipola takes on Jack Nowell in an all-England quarter-final in the RugbyPass FIFA charity tournament

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Mako Vunipola takes on Jack Nowell in an all-England quarter-final in the RugbyPass FIFA charity tournament

Surviving off the land, though, provided a very different experience 17 years ago when the Springboks’ preparations for the 2003 World Cup in Australia descended into farce at a military-style boot camp that went horribly wrong, causing friction among a squad that went on to lose in the quarter-finals to New Zealand. 

Asked by Midi Olympique, the bi-weekly French rugby publication, if he had ever been afraid in rugby, van Niekerk opened up about his memories of the infamous Kamp Staaldraad that was supposed to be a team bonding exercise with an emphasis on fitness. 

“The federation (SA Rugby) had seen fit to group us in a military camp located near the border of Botswana. I can see some virtues in this kind of commando internship. It’s a management method like any other, after all. But here it went too far. They wanted to break us, humiliate us, scare us. I even lost four pounds in three days.

“Kamp Staaldraad, it was crazy when I think about it. We called the soldiers ‘sir’, they answered us using our service number. We had to climb nude through tunnels dug by foxes as they poured frozen water over our heads. 

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“As long as we were climbing, we were waiting for recordings of God Save The Queen and the Haka. It was crazy, I tell you. We also spent one night in the desert. We were all starved, so the soldiers carried boxes inside of which there were live chickens.

“I grew up in Johannesburg. I’m a little town guy. I had never killed chicken. Especially since the soldiers refused to give us a knife. So we had to kill the beasts with our own hands. I even believe that a player tore out a vein from the animal with his teeth. What a nightmare. 

“If I had been a team executive at the time, I would have refused to put my team-mates at risk in this kind of exercise… one morning, when we had to stay in the very cold water of a lake, some players tried to get back to the shore. The soldiers then threatened them with their gun, even firing two bullets on the ground.

“Another afternoon, at 35 degrees, the soldiers gathered us in full sun. Derrick Hougaard raised his hand and asked, ‘Sir, may I ask you a question?’ The soldier replied: ‘Yes, number 42!’ 

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“And Derrick to continue: ‘You wouldn’t have sunscreen?’ We all exploded with laughter and the soldiers were mad with anger. So we queued up to do push-ups while the soldiers came and went on the bridge formed by our backs.”

In the aftermath of the infamous camp, the Springboks were hit by allegations of racism following claims that Geo Cronje refused to share his room with Quinton Davids. “It was horribly disappointing,” continued van Niekerk.

“In 1995, the Springboks’ World Cup victory brought the country into the era of the Rainbow Nation. I was 15 at the time but who could have forgotten the image of Nelson Mandela wearing the No6 by François Pienaar? Who could have forgotten the streets of our cities flooded with people of all colours after the final whistle? 

“After the euphoria of the title, everything fell apart a little in South Africa and this year, 2003, there was bad energy within the group, a real separation between the black and white of the team. I found it inhuman. My mother didn’t raise me that way.”

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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