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Ruan Ackermann's South Africa homecoming is confirmed

Ruan Ackermann of Gloucester looks on during the Premiership Rugby Cup match between Gloucester Rugby and Exeter Chiefs at Kingsholm Stadium on November 22, 2024 in Gloucester, England. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
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Back-row Ruan Ackermann has signed for the Stormers ahead of next season, as reported by RugbyPass.

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The 29-year-old brought his eight-year stay at Gloucester to an end at the conclusion of the Gallagher Premiership season, where he made over 170 appearances for the club.

Having originally joined from the Lions in 2017 while his father, Johan, was head coach at Kingsholm, Ackermann stayed well beyond Johan’s exit in 2020, and went on to establish himself as a mainstay in the Cherry and White starting XV.

He will join a Stormers side that have already recruited Springboks Cobus Reinach and Ntuthuko Mchunu ahead of next season.

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“The support for rugby in Cape Town is second to none and there are obviously some incredible players and coaches there, so I am looking forward to what should be an exciting new journey for me and my family,” Ackermann said.

“I’m ready to give everything I have to the cause and make a positive contribution in any way I can as part of what will be a strong squad next season.”

Stormers director of Rugby John Dobson added: “Ruan is a proven performer who puts in the kind of hard work that our game model requires. Our fans can expect complete commitment from him for every minute he spends in our jersey.

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“We are very excited to see the impact he will make here and I’m confident that he will become a firm favourite at DHL Stadium.”

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Red and White Dynamight 1 hour ago
'Bit unfair': Bulls boss Johan Ackermann's vow before All Blacks clash

“kicked out”. Safas clutch so desperately to their string of victim pearls that excuses are always at the ready to explain away their own poor management decisions. SARU threatened their SANZAR partners for years that ‘because of viewership numbers’ that they were owed a bigger slice of the broadcasting rights pie. Aus and NZ quite rightly told them to FO, SANZAR was an equal partnership. Notwithstanding that each partner brought their own strengths and weaknesses, certainly a winning record completely escaped SA teams as part of their ‘package’. OFS were chopped, and early, despite being 1 of the more attractive SA teams to watch. Still the concentration of SA players from 5 teams to 4 had little discernible improvement on teams performance. In fact, SA teams were - by far - the least successful partner. Only 1 Champion SA club whereas all 3 origin Aus teams won and all 5 NZ teams have won. SA teams had a 22% win rate in NZ - so noone was turning up to watch them - whilst NZ teams had a 50% win rate in SA. When Covid pandemic hit the entire World and, NZ for 1 closed borders in and out, obviously this impacted an International competition and whilst a trans-Tasman lite-Super comp returned eventually, SARU used this opportunity to scream “we’ve been kicked out”. The reality was a temporary solution that would have soon corrected itself. Of course everyone knows the Safas innately clutch desperately to being a victim - ‘noone likes us, we dont care’ - and everyone outside of SA knows that the truth is found elsewhere. After only a few seasons of turning up to matches with teams full of development players in the URC/Champions Cup, those partner nations and their fans are already sick of the moaning and whinging that inherently accompanies all things Sth African. SARU are probably still kidding themselves that they will enter the 6Nations and that they will be “kicked out” of the Rugby Championship. What a bunch of big babies.

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