Schalk Burger
Saracens are delighted to announce the signing of South African international flanker Schalk Burger for the 2016 / 2017 season.
The world class Springbok loose forward will link-up with the reigning Aviva Premiership champions for the 2016 / 2017 season after signing a 2-year deal with the Allianz Park club.
Renowned as 1 of world rugby’s finest loose forwards, Burger has captained South Africa during his stellar 12-year international career and is a former IRB World Player of the year. He has won 86 caps for the Springboks and holds the record for the most tries (14) for a loose forward for his country.
Burger will link up with Saracens after a spell with Japanese club Suntory Sungoliath and Super Rugby’s Stormers.
On his future move to Saracens, the 32-year old Burger said: “I’m delighted to be joining Saracens. I’m extremely excited to have the opportunity to play in both the Aviva Premiership and the European Cup, 2 of the leading competitions in world rugby for such a special club. It’s an exciting challenge for me and my family and hopefully I can add a lot of value both on and off the field to an already successful group of players and coaches. I’m looking forward to playing alongside my new teammates and playing in front of all the Saracens fans and getting to know everyone at Allianz Park.”
Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall: “Schalk is a Springbok legend, and will add a huge amount of experience and quality to our young English pack of forwards at the club. We have always talked about having the right blend of experience and youth in our squad, so to be able to add one of the world’s finest players to the group is extremely exciting news. By the beginning of next season we will have lost 2 highly experienced back row forwards in Ernst Joubert and Jacques Burger, so to have a player of Schalk’s calibre coming into the squad is fantastic news.”
He is a man who has achieved everything there is to achieve in the game of rugby. Not only is he a fine rugby player, he is a humble and down to earth guy who we believe we will fit into the Saracens environment. We’re all very excited to welcome Schalk and his family to Allianz Park for the 2016 season.”
Schalk Burger Fact File:
Position: Back-row
Height: 6 ft 4 in Weight: 251 lb
Honours:
- World Cup winner (2007)
- Has played in the Rugby World Cup four times (2003, 2007, 2011, 2015)
- SA Rugby Player of the Year (2004 & 2011)
- Young SA Rugby Player of the Year nominee (2003 & 2004)
- IRB Player of the Year (2004)
- Holds the record for the most Test tries by a Springbok flanker (14), with England and New Zealand the teams he has scored the most tries against (three)
- Springbok captain no. 55 in history.
- Burger made his Super Rugby debut for the Stormers in 2004 and his Currie Cup bow for Western Province the same year.
saracens
Good luck to Schalk- he deserves the good payday and, if he can stay fit, will be a massive asset for Saracens.
Is Sarries not happy with Farrell as their flyhalf anymore?
nortie wrote:
They just discovered that they had 10 boxes of jersey’s that they had ordered for Jacques Burger with his name already on, so they reckoned the position was right, so just sign another Burger to replace the retired one.
Problem solved.
2 @ nortie:
I see that John Mitchell has been appointed the USA Eagles head coach.
Look forward to the new SR season and this could be the possible Stormers XV to face the Bulls:
1.Frans Malherbe
2.Scarra Ntubeni
3.Vincent Koch
4.Eben Etsebeth
5.Pieter-Steph
6.Schalk Burger
7.Siya Kolisi
8.Nizaam Carr
9.Nic Groom
10.Kurt Coleman
11.Dillyn Leyds
12.Juan de Jongh
13.Huw Jones
14.Cornal Hendricks
15.Cheslin Kolbe
Burger running at 10 is no more than what Retallick does. The All Blacks sets up more rucks and hence Retallick gets more ball at 10. Everyone runs a forward into the 10 channel flat.
Stormers lack of key personnel i.e. no Duane,de Allende,Catrakilis, Kitshoff make’s it advantage Bulls.
@ provincefan:
Retallick at the Chiefs would take the ball at 10 but then mostly look to offload after committing the defense.
Burger just takes every ball and clatters forward with no impact.
I highly doubt that Carter would have gotten player of the year if Retallick took almost every ball at 10.
@ provincefan:
@ 6
Coleman??????
Please do not tell me the have given him another contract.
There is a huge difference between taking the ball short off 9 and deeper in the flyhalf position 10m away from the oposition line… Schalk does the latter.
@ provincefan:
I would be disappointed if fleck does not fo straight to vermaak at 9… Groom is a dud.
MacroPolo wrote:
I agree re Vermaak and Groom but the sooner Fleck gets Justin Phillips and specially Brandon Thomson ( flyhalf) in the mix the better.
@Nortie
Burger’s role in the last year of so is that of link-man and he has created line breaks very well i.e. setting Lood, Eben, Bismarck through with soft passes sometimes without looking and maybe doing so wanting to change the angle of his attack. He does have a problem with his body positioning with ball in hand.He has though put more players through holes than what Willie or FdP has done.
His passing game is not poor and he can pass accurately halfway across the field,but he shouldn’t stand at flyhalf that often as more opportunities gets botched by him doing so when it should be done by a half-back. He is though on a par with the likes of Kieran Read and Michael Hooper when it comes to distributing and putting people into holes.
However he should focus on his core duties expected of a flanker and a lot less on being a first receiver. Read don’t play Carter all game long, which is why Burger doing it drove me nuts.
provincefan wrote:
The negatives far outweigh the positives fortunately. Schalk by far dominated the carries at the world cup and these often only served to break momentum. Cant compare to Read.
Pollard was the “running flyhalf” selected. If schalk was goi g to be the sole play maker then we may as well have played morne steyn.
Schalk did a lot of damage.
@robzim
Coleman is a very limited 10 and that’s being nice to him.I do hope we give Robert du Preez the 10 slot and use JL du Plessis as back up.Do you know what ever happened to Goosen coming to us or has that deal gone sour?
@MacroPolo
Yeah but the ‘lot of damage’ you mention was largely due to the structure the Boks played to rather than the player himself.Ellis Park 2015,Boks vs AB’s,and look how many opportunities got wasted in the redzone.
We play off the 9…good in the 80’s and 90’s and worked like a dream…but today it limits the attack..
but playing off a flanker added dimension,however a flanker,like the scrummie,has no idea where the available space and emerging mismatches are.That’s why I prefer the 10 to be the general.
15 @ provincefan:
Schalk played no differently for the boks than he did for the stormers this year. The boks structure deserves criticism, but schalk played his own game.
@Scrumdown
Mitchell USA Eagles coach job is going to be tough one,cause his best players play in overseas leagues and 7’s,so earning capabilities in the 15-man game is going to be a trick.They’ll need supporters to have the cash to keep talented players local and even then they won’t be even close in matching the earnings of other 1st tier sports in that market.The US prime talents play sports that has far more paying power than rugby has i.e. NFL,and they won’t be able to just rely on bringing foreign players,cause you’ll then end up in a situation like France who’s national team keeps going backwards.
@ provincefan:
Du Preez has done even less to excite me than Pollard, and I am not blown away by Pollard.
@Lions4ever
There is/was hype around Robert du Preez some even saying he’s the next Henry Honiball, but I have my doubts about the prodigy. About Pollard, then it don’t/didn’t help any of our youngsters if they get coached by a succession of daft coaches the likes of Ludeke, Gold,AC, Drotske to name a few.But Nollis Marias is a proponent of the expansive game, so I do hope he develops Pollard’s game even more.
@ provincefan:
IMO the most talented flyhalf in the WP is Brandon Thomson who played SA under 20 last year. His performance in the under 21 final against the Cheetahs last year was arguably the best performance by any flyhalf in a WP/ Stormers jersey since the brilliant once off performance by Gary van Aswegen against the Bulls a few years ago. I know there is a huge gap between under 21 and super rugby but the class of the player was there for all to see…. Whether the Stormers have the coaching staff to properly develop him is another story.
Yeah Brandon Thompson was also very influential in the Baby Boks’ 46-13 demotion job over the Aussies at the under 20 tournament. At some point we will need these youngsters to get game time at the top level so they’d more and better experienced going forward.
Nowadays players have to watch carefully where they go and play for in order to get coached properly,cause without a real coach,your career can go backwards. That’s why I was a bit disappointed Eddie Jones didn’t stay in the Cape,cause imagine how fully develop a youngster’s game would become under the guidance of the ‘genius consultant’ that is Eddie.
We will have a weaker SR team in 2016 though when compared to last year:
Kitshoff gone to Bordeaux
Catrakilis gone to Montpellier
Neil Rautenbach gone to Cheetahs
Rhodes “must fall” to Saracens
Manual Cazirra to Racing 92
Thor Vermeulen to Toulon
JDV to Leicester Tigers
Patrick Howard to Northampton Saints
What I like to see is for Chris Cloete being that out-and-out fetcher we were raving about and whether WPRU will get Heinrich Brussouw.
2 @ nortie:
Hi nortie , good one 😆 well Charlie Hodgeson will have retired by then if I remember correctly and Owen Farrell could miss chunks of the season for Saracens with international duty so maybe you are on to something. Saracens mentioning he would help fill the gap that Jacques Burger and Ernst Joubert will leave was just a diversion 💡
@ provincefan:
Is chris cloete in the stormers or lions squad?
@MacroPolo
I thought they’d do the same dual contract with Chris as they did with Koch,but they’ve let him slip through their fingers…
@ provincefan:
I looked now. Koch initially made it to the stormers after the lions overlooked him for super rugby.
Chris Cloete does not seem to be in the lions squad for 2016, so looks good for you guys.
Little news from the stormers regarding their squad.
Hi MacroPolo
Yeah that is good for us,but to be honest I don’t see us doing any better in 2016 than what we did last season simply because we don’t have a worldclass 10 and we still need a quality opensider,so unless we sign in those 2 areas,then we right back to square one.
Probably also good that we didn’t go for John Mitchell,cause 3 of the few senior players that we do have in the squad also played for Mitch and that would’ve just ****ed up WP rugby imho:
JC- who captained the Lions team shortly after Mitch left.
Jano Vermaak -who left under Mitch.
Taute-who left when the Lions dropped out of SR under Mitch.
So that would not be the right fit to start the new SR season.
@ provincefan:
I would have been very happy to have had Mitch…world class coach.
Those pissies at the Lions should have grown a pair.
The guy was exonerated on all charges, that means, in my book, it was a load of rubbish.
Vermaak left to go to the Bulls, and the Lions promptly won the CC with him gone.
Taute is still the worst buy Province ever made, and yet he is still on their books.
I would rather have had Mitch than those 3 players you mentioned
@ provincefan:
I do agree that we won’t be very successful in SR, our luck is that we are not playing any NZ teams unless we might sneak a playoff spot.
Howzit Nortie
Mitch also lost quality players because of his treatment of them…i. e. Josh Strauss, who as we both know had a high work-ethic. And yes he was exonerated and there were problems in the 2 franchises that he coached,but many of the reasons why Mitch got dumped by the All Blacks in 2003 were never made fully public were they?
People say he’s changed a lot, but I wouldn’t wanna bet 3 years on that. Also bear in mind that both great and good teams alike have moved away from the disciplinarian type coaching set-up to having leaders that the team rally around.Hansen and Cheika has done it at international level,and at club level…Heyneke Meyer did it 10 years ago and now Johan Ackermann,focusing more on building a family-type unit where players will run through a burning building for their coach and where everyone’s opinion is both heard and respected.
Eddie Jones is a disciplinarian and hard task-master just like Mitch,and yet the players were happy for him to come in.World class coach or not,the fact is that Mitch has achieved nothing at SR level, do I’d rather risk it with no-experience at SR level,Fleckie and Dobson,who’s hearts are covered in blue and white hoops than a guy who may fuck up WP.Gert,Fleckie and Dobson all like the attacking game aswell, so who knows it might not be such a bad idea having them running the show until a bigger fish comes in.Mitch imho is a bit like Stuart Lancaster and Philippe Saint-Andre,just a little older in years than both of them.
“People will give a manager plenty of opportunities to crack the whip so it’s best to pick and choose your moments. You don’t have to dish out a punishment very often before everyone gets the message. I place discipline above all else and it might have cost us several titles. But if I had to repeat things I’d do it precisely the same because discipline has to come before anything else.”
Sir Alex Ferguson (49 trophies in total)
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