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James Horwill is poignantly trying to emulate his late friend Dan Vickerman by winning the Varsity

James Horwill finished up his professional career by playing for the Barbarians last June (Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images for Barbarians)

Former Wallaby captain James Horwill will be in the Cambridge University second row against Oxford University in the 138th Varsity match next week, a contest that marks the tenth anniversary of the late Dan Vickerman leading the light blues to victory in the famous fixture.

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Horwill and Vickerman were Australia’s second row partnership at the 2011 World Cup, but Vickerman was forced to retire due to leg fracture problems a year later. 

Vickerman, who played in the 2008 and 2009 varsity matches, tragically committed suicide in 2017, highlighting how many sportsmen and women struggle once their playing careers are over.

The Daniel Vickerman scholarship was established in the late lock’s memory and Horwill, studying a 20-month EMBA course at Cambridge, become its second recipient, an honour presented by his former team-mate’s wife Sarah and her two sons.

It was a particularly poignant moment as Vickerman was the person who inspired Horwill about taking a course at Cambridge once his professional playing career ended. That moment came at Twickenham in June when he scored a try as Barbarians captain against England. 

(Continue reading below…)

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Horwill, who now returns to Twickenham on December 12 as an amateur, told RugbyPass: “I watched last year’s game, the one in which Jamie Roberts (his former Harlequins team-mate) was involved, and I had spoken at length to Dan Vickerman about his experience here (at Cambridge). The aim is to get the win ten years after Dan led Cambridge to victory.

“I’m lucky enough to be the second recipient of the scholarship. The first was Andrew Hunter a young Sydney University lock who came over and did his undergraduate degree and played for the club. 

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“When Dan initially moved to Australia he played for my club Queensland Uni and we played together for the Wallabies. He put the seed in my head about doing some kind of study post my rugby career. 

“We talked together at the 2011 World Cup and the scholarship is something I’m very humbled to receive. To have Sarah and the kids here to present it was very special.

“The Rugby Players Association are helping players because it isn’t an easy transition, whether you are prepared or not. When you look at someone like Dan from the outside, he probably looked best prepared having taken time out to study at Cambridge to prepare for life after rugby and he still had issues.

“It’s about understanding that it is OK not to be OK and to talk about it. People are there to help and you should be thinking about this if you are 18 and just starting out or past 30 like I was and looking at options. The world of professional sport can be a fickle one and a short one. At times you don’t always decide when you finish and it is great we are bringing awareness of this fact.”

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Horwill will pack down alongside former Springbok Flip van der Merwe – also 34 – in what could be the most experienced second row partnership to ever appear in a Varsity match as the players boast 99 Test caps between them.

Horwill, who captained the Wallabies 16 times in his 14-year professional career that ended at Harlequins, is currently juggling his studies with the build-up to the Varsity match and the length of this course means he could also play in 2020 alongside Schalk Brits, the Springbok World Cup-winning hooker, who is expected to start his business course next September. 

“It’s pretty busy because there is a lot that goes into it off the field,” explained Horwill. “There are events and functions plus training and I knew it would be like this and you have to make it work.

“What makes this game unique is the history of the match and some of the guys have been training for a year to play in it again. It is fast-paced and it will be about peaking at the right time.

“Our captain Stephen Leonard has done a great job and I talk when I feel that I can add value. I’m alongside Flip in the second row and we definitely feel older than everyone else which is interesting. It’s nice to have someone in the same boat!

“My course is challenging and designed to push you. It lasts 20 months and will still be running when the 2020 match takes place, but let’s get through this one first.”

WATCH: Popular referee Nigel Owens may retire at end of the season

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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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