He flew his wife and two sons to Belfast so the family could see out his last six months of rugby together. Five months after that contract expired, he was a double World Cup winner.
Most players don’t get to pick their ending. Duane Vermeulen thought he had. His retirement was planned down to the month.
By the end of 2022 he’d done the sums on himself. The knee was going. South Africa were handing the No 8 jersey to Jasper Wiese, Evan Roos and Elrigh Louw. His Ulster deal ran to May 2023. So he flew his wife Ezel and their two sons to Belfast and treated the last six months as the send-off.
We sign off from the game as a family. Then I know I’m not on my own.
Duane Vermeulen, speaking on The Fan Van
The tour Duane Vermeulen turned down
It made sense at the time. He’d just turned down the Springboks’ end-of-year tour to Europe in November 2022, and he’d turned it down himself. Head coach Jacques Nienaber and director of rugby Rassie Erasmus wanted him on the plane. Vermeulen, 36 and dragging a meniscus problem around, told them he’d rather get it cleaned out.
“I want to be at 100%. I can’t play at 70%,” he said. “When you’re younger you might push it a bit.”
That knee had already eaten most of his year. He had surgery in June 2022 after Ulster’s URC semi-final loss to the Stormers, missed the Wales series, came back in August and started against the All Blacks at Ellis Park. By November he was watching from Belfast while three younger eights split his minutes.
So he read the room. Nobody rings a 36-year-old back rower after that.
Duane Vermeulen arranged his goodbye in Belfast
He played the season out. Started Ulster’s URC quarter-final defeat to Connacht at Kingspan Stadium on 5 May 2023, then was named among 10 players leaving the province. Two seasons in Belfast, 24 URC appearances, done. Family there to see it.
“And then, yeah, that didn’t happen.”
Then Nienaber called
Not with a promise, just an invitation: the Ulster season had been good enough, come into camp, we’ll see. Vermeulen went. What followed was six Tests before the World Cup, three of them starts, and the captaincy against Australia at Loftus Versfeld in July, the third time he’d led the side.
“The rest was kind of history.”
In France they used him wherever the week demanded, which included flanker against Tonga in Marseille rather than his own jersey at the base. Then the 12-11 final win over New Zealand at the Stade de France on 28 October. Cap 76. He announced his retirement 11 days later at 37, the most-capped Springboks No 8 there has been: 68 starts in the eight jersey, three at flanker, five off the bench, four Tests as captain.
Sit with the alternative for a second. Stick to the Belfast plan and Vermeulen finishes as a one-time World Cup winner whose last act in green and gold was a Rugby Championship Test in Johannesburg. He’d have been fine. He’d also have been wrong.
Why 2019 still means more
Ask him which of the two medals means more and he doesn’t go to Paris. He goes to 2019, because of how little of it looked available a year out.
“We never expected even to be in that position,” he said.
Asked in the same conversation to name the All Blacks equivalent of his own Dream Team selection, he went straight to Kieran Read — two World Cups, captain, and in his view clear of everyone else he faced. Read himself has since conceded that South Africa have moved ahead of New Zealand.
He was on camera at all because of the Springboks Dream Team — SuperSport’s fan vote marking 30 years since 1995, and the reason Jean de Villiers, Schalk Burger and Hanyani Shimange are driving a mobile studio around South Africa meeting the XV. More than 135,000 votes went in. At No 8 Vermeulen came out ahead of Gary Teichmann, Bob Skinstad, Pierre Spies and Joe van Niekerk. He found out, he says, from strangers stopping him in the street.
Still in the building
He works on Erasmus’s staff now with the breakdown as his patch, which puts him on the touchline rather than in the 23 when the four-Test series against New Zealand opens on 22 August. And he was closer to pulling boots on again than most people realised: in Wales last year he warmed up with the squad knowing that one injury in the right place would have dragged him back in.
It didn’t come. Given how the last phone call went, he’s probably had his share of those.
Duane Vermeulen: your questions answered
Why did Duane Vermeulen miss the Springboks’ 2022 end-of-year tour?
He was managing a knee problem and told Jacques Nienaber and Rassie Erasmus he would rather have it treated than tour below full fitness. He had already undergone knee surgery in June 2022 after Ulster’s URC semi-final defeat to the Stormers.
How many caps did Duane Vermeulen win for the Springboks?
76, between his 2012 debut against Australia in Perth and the 2023 Rugby World Cup final against New Zealand. He started 68 of them at No 8, three at flanker and came off the bench five times, making him the most-capped Springboks No 8 in history.
What is Duane Vermeulen doing now?
He is part of Rassie Erasmus’s Springboks coaching staff, with a brief centred on the breakdown. He retired from playing in November 2023, 11 days after the World Cup final.
