Jan van der Merwe (rugby union)

Jan van der Merwe (born (1995-08-31)31 August 1995 in Pretoria, South Africa) is a South African rugby union player, currently playing with the Blue Bulls.^[1] His regular position is hooker.

Career

Despite never earning a provincial call-up at high school level, Van der Merwe joined the Blue Bulls Academy after finishing high school and represented the Blue Bulls U19 side in the 2014 Under-19 Provincial Championship, starting eight matches and making three substitute appearances as they reached the final of the competition, where they were defeated 26–33 by Western Province U19.^[2]

He made his first class debut for the Blue Bulls on 6 March 2015, coming on as a late replacement in their 2015 Vodacom Cup match against the Falcons in Kempton Park, helping them to a 37–13 victory.^[3]

He also played for UP Tuks in the 2015 Varsity Cup competition, starting their match against UJ^[4] and playing off the bench on two occasions.

Despite initially not being named in a 37-man training squad for the South Africa national under-20 rugby union team,^[5] he did feature for them in a friendly match against a Varsity Cup Dream Team in April 2015. He came on as a first-half replacement and scored a try just after half-time in a 31–24 victory.^[6] He was also included in the squad that embarked on a two-match tour of Argentina.^[7] He came on as a replacement in their 25–22 victory over Argentina^[8] and started their second tour match a few days later, in which he scored two first-half tries in a 39–28 victory.^[9]

Upon the team's return, he was named in the final squad for the 2015 World Rugby Under 20 Championship.^[10] He started their opening match in Pool B of the competition and got South Africa's first points in the competition by scoring a try in a 33–5 win against hosts Italy.^[11] He played off the bench in their remaining two group stage fixtures, a 40–8 win against Samoa^[12] and a 46–13 win over Australia^[13] to help South Africa finish top of Pool B to qualify for the semi-finals with the best record pool stage of all the teams in the competition. Van der Merwe came on as a replacement in their semi-final match against England, but could not prevent them losing 20–28 to be eliminated from the competition by England for the second year in succession.^[14] He started their third-place play-off match against France, helping South Africa to a 31–18 win to secure third place in the competition.^[15]

References