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The All Black that hit Eben Etzebeth 'the hardest' he's been hit

South Africa's Eben Etzebeth waits for the line out during the Rugby Championship match between New Zealand and South Africa at Albany Stadium (AFP PHOTO / MICHAEL BRADLEY (MICHAEL BRADLEY/AFP via Getty Images)

Springboks enforcer Eben Etzebeth has revealed that a former All Blacks player hit him the hardest in his rugby career to date.

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Etzebeth, who lifted the Rugby World Cup in 2019 and vanquished the British & Irish Lions last summer in South Africa, has played against the toughest players the game has had to offer across the span of his career.

The 30-year-old is so competitive that he admits he struggles to acknowledge or credit the players that have tested him the most.

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Eben Etzebeth | Rugby Roots

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Eben Etzebeth | Rugby Roots

“It’s always good up against players like Brodie Retallick, Maro Itoje, James Ryan and Alun Wyn Jones, and yourself [Jim Hamilton] back in 2013,” Etzebeth told Jim Hamilton, who caught up with his former foe in the most recent episode of RugbyPass’ Rugby Roots. “It’s alsways good playing against world-class locks.

“For me, what’s really nice when you’re back in South Africa, it’s extra fun to go up against friends,” noted Etzebeth. “For me, back when I was with the Stormers, Marcell Coetzee when he was with the Sharks, somehow we’d always try to look for each other and run into each other.

“The same when I played against Beast [Tendai Mtawarira]. He actually gave me some s*** after the game. He told me ‘Why do you keep running at me?’

“It’s nice playing against friends but then there’s playing against guys that you don’t like that much, there’s always a bit of extra spice.”

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Etzebeth said he refused to acknowledge who was the best player he played against, when asked who was the best of the best of the opposition he’d faced.

“I think because of the personality I have, I wouldn’t be able to say that!” joked the 6’7, 123kg lock. “I can’t give you one.”

The World Cup winner did however reveal which player had hit him the hardest and it wasn’t a forward.

“Back in the day when I went up against Ma’a Nonu. He hit me once and he just hit me from the side.

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“I thought it was one of their props hitting me, [then] I looked at him. He was quite a hard man. Probably the guy who tackled me the hardest.”

Etzebeth said he’s happy he doesn’t have to go up against his fellow Springboks.

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“I wouldn’t ever want to play against the Springboks! If you look at guys like Siya, Pieter Steph and Duane, Bongi, Kitshoff, all those guys.”

Playing the All Blacks and England are standout teams he likes to go up against and measure himself against.

“After playing England in the World Cup final, there’s always going to be that extra spice in that game.

“You can’t forget about the French. They’re playing pretty well. They’re having an unbelievable year so far. We playing them in November so that’s a match-up we’re really looking forward to.”

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2 Comments
J
John 953 days ago

That's saying something as Eben is a great player.

s
stephen 958 days ago

Guess he has to say that as ABs beat them way more than often or not ...on scoreboard and physicality

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JW 4 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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