Sale hail ‘superhuman’ impact of tackle king South African signing

Less than two months into the Gallagher Premiership season, Sale are feeling massively chuffed with their recruitment of the unheralded Ernst van Rhyn. Jono Ross, another South African, had made an indelible mark at the Manchester club, being crowned the league’s tackle king in three successive campaigns before he bowed out following last May’s title-deciding defeat to Saracens at Twickenham.

By then it was known that van Rhyn, a former Baby Boks U20s lock who doubles up as a blindside, was on his way to England on a three-year deal, but not even Sale imagined he would turn out to be as good as he so far has.

Sift through last season’s URC stats and there is no mention of the 26-year-old in that league’s top 100 tacklers as he only started five games in that competition for the Stormers, half the number of the 10 starts he enjoyed in the 2021/22 season that ended with the Cape Town franchise being crowned champions.

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However, just five starts into his new beginning at Sale, van Rhyn is topping the Premiership tackle chart with 84, 14 more collisions than the next best on the list.

That’s quite the impact but, as explained by Alex Sanderson, the South African’s influence isn’t restricted to just tackling. Instead, there is a whole suite of impacts to get very excited about.

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“It’s got to be a little bit of luck because we didn’t assume he would be this good,” enthused Sanderson when asked in midweek about the canny recruitment of van Rhyn. “You talk about the tackle king, he has been to the most amount of rucks two or three times this year in the five games.

“He also ran second highest metres the week before last behind Sam James at full-back; it’s always the back three or centres who run more metres and he is up there. It’s his stats all round. He was making offloads and breaks in the wide channels at the weekend, so he is an exceptional player with unbelievable consistency and robustness. We are so lucky.”

So what gave Sale the hunch that the forward could be a very decent fit for their set-up? “We get the clips, we watch them, we watch them individually all of us, we come and have a conversation about it and we look at how he moves, how he hits, and then we have two or three longer conversations about the person he is, what drives him, some of the values he has as a player.

“He talked about his dad and his dad would be most disappointed with him if he scored a couple of tries but was walking around the field. He wears work rate as a badge. He also lived with Cobus Wiese when he was younger so you understand the kind of person he is, being able to live with Cobus and vice-versa, you have got to be quite solid, quite stoic. I wouldn’t say God-fearing but God-loving.

“Other things then aligned. He just got married, wanted an overseas experience and so the fit for him, Manchester and this young kind of demographic of a team, has allowed him to show off his talents in how we play and he has flourished because he is really happy. Him and Bianca as a pair are really happy in Manchester.

“They love public transport, they love charity shops, the smallest things that you take for granted are mega for them. So you get that and then all of a sudden it flows into his game with boundless energy. There is a lot there but there is the robustness of the recruitment policy, his age demographic, the kind of person he is, and the fact that it is just right for his life at the moment to be where he is and to be with us.”

Has there been any sign yet that this workload might take its toll? “Everyone backs themselves in work rate but he has done it every week. He’s top of the tackle count every week, and top of the ruck count.

“We talk about people taking little twinges and I’m like, ‘How are you doing it?’ Every Monday, the first question is how’s Ernst because at some point we are going to have to rest him because of the workload he is getting through and he is fine. He truly is at the moment appearing to be superhuman – or he is just lying to us and is in pieces but we haven’t got there yet.”