The dream of every Afrikaner is to one day wear the Springboks jersey. He was also Duhan van der Merwe during his childhood and adolescence in George, a city of 150,000 inhabitants in the South African province of the Western Cape. But sport – in a reflection of life itself – is sometimes written in crooked lines and offers routes with stops to reach the destination. In the case of rugby, the rule of being able to be international for a country other than that of nationality after three years of residence.
After excelling at school and reaching the final of the U20 World Championship with South Africa as a youngster, Van der Merwe’s progress stalled. To reach the first team he encountered enormous competition (Willie le Roux, Cheslin Kolbe, Makazole Mapimpi, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Canan Moodie…), he suffered a series of untimely injuries, and the coaches wanted to focus his international career towards rugby sevens, which is very good, but it is not the same. So at the age of 20 he packed his bags for Europe, following in the footsteps of his brother Akker, who stood out for the Sale Sharks.
He first anchored in Montpellier, where his compatriot Jake White (2019 World Cup winner over England) led the team, but he did not integrate and played only sporadically. The lifeline came from Edinburgh, with an offer from the team from the Scottish capital that participates in the Pro 14, a league of Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Italian and South African teams, which rivals the French and English ones.
He arrived in 2017, and on the same day that he completed three years of residence in Scotland, he received a call from coach George Townsend asking him if he wanted to be international for the country. He made his debut against Georgia scoring a try and has never looked back. He played in the World Cup in France with his adopted squad and has been key in the Scots’ four-game winning streak against England in the Six Nations, something that has not happened since the seventies. Last year he scored two tries at Twickenham (one of them, considered the best of the tournament, after starting on his own field and traveling 55 meters avoiding rivals), and on Saturday he scored a hat trick at Murrayfield. With flyhalf Finn Russell he has established a very special connection.
There are wings who are artists, others who are gazelles and others who are bulldozers, and Van der Merwe is one of the latter. Of considerable size (1.93 m tall and 106 kilos), he is generally larger and stronger than those who try to block his way when riding. Sometimes not even two can tackle him. He was selected for the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 2021, a particularly emotional moment for him, and in some ways bittersweet. In his country of birth, rugby players who go abroad to make money or be internationals are frowned upon, and he was the subject of harsh criticism on social media and a continuous bombardment of balls in the air in matches to test him. (Your goal is to run with the ball at least ten times). The counterpart was the emotion of seeing his father and his entire family with the Scottish flag painted on their faces, as the parish of Murrayfield does.
His career parallels that of Handrè Pollard, a year older and with whom he played in that Springboks under-20 team. But while his former teammate has been a prophet in his homeland (almost 70 times an absolute international and two-time world champion), Van der Merwe has had to do a much more complicated circuit, full of curves, be cold, endure the rain and put on the Scottish skirt.
