Sale will be saying goodbye to two South African World Cup winners at the end of the season as Faf de Klerk and Lood de Jager are leaving for pastures new. De Klerk is set to take up a huge contract offer in Japan worth nearly £1 million and de Jager is set to join him in the Far East. The realities of the reduced salary cap are biting, proven by the loss of two world-class players in de Klerk and de Jager. This is something that all Premiership clubs are having to cope with for the next couple of seasons.
De Klerk will be sorely missed and will leave a huge void when he leaves at the end of the season. The reality of the reduced salary cap means that is much harder to keep foreign international players like Faf as Premiership clubs cannot match the salaries on offer in leagues in Japan and France. First and foremost, Sale will miss Faf the scrum-half. When he arrived in the summer of 2017, he was out of the picture for the Springboks but after his first season at Sale he was back playing and starring for his country against England in the summer of 2018. After just one season in the Gallagher Premiership, de Klerk found himself back in the South Africa squad. Then-South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus convinced the South African Rugby to relax the the 30-cap eligibility rule which had been put in place at the start of 2017 in order to select players like de Klerk and immediately he was back in the fold.
On his return to the national setup, de Klerk started all 3 tests in South Africa’s home series against England and played a starring role in the series, named man of the match in his first test match back in the team. His constant sniping around the fringes of the ruck and quick-thinking proved a real menace that England could not deal with. In 2018, de Klerk was named as one of the 5 nominations for World Rugby Player of the Year, a dramatic turnaround from where his career was only 18 months beforehand. When he joined the club, he took on a leadership role in the squad and the responsibility of being a key player has improved him to no end. The club gave de Klerk the opportunity to come over to England when he was out of the picture with South Africa and giving him the responsibility has enhanced his performance level and helped expand his game. The skills he has learnt since joining Sale have taken him from a good player to a world-class player.
His influence on the field also stretches to the positive impact he has had on the players around him, especially in his position. There is no doubt that Raffi Quirke’s development has been significantly aided by de Klerk and it is well known how good a relationship the two share. The master and the apprentice have been great for each other, learning and bouncing off one another. For other younger nines at the club like Gus Warr and Nye Thomas it has been a godsend for them to learn from Faf. Sale are very fortunate that they have a generational type of talent in Raffi Quirke ready to take up the reins from de Klerk; the apprentice will now become the master. The question is whether Gus Warr is ready to step up to be the number two next season and then when Quirke is on England duty to potentially be the starter. Ideally the club would look to bring in a replacement for de Klerk but the reduction in the salary cap might have inhibited those hopes.
De Klerk’s influence on the club has been keenly felt off the field as well as on the field. He has played a key role in convincing numerous other South Africans to join him in the North West of England including fellow World Cup winner Lood de Jager and the 3 du Preez brothers. His personal relationship with the likes of Akker van der Merwe and Rohan Janse van Rensburg would have played an important role in luring them to the club. He has set an example for a number of Springboks that you can take your game on to another level abroad and become a regular for the national side by plying your trade in the Premiership. The arrival of Faf de Klerk at Sale has taken both the player and the club onto a different level. Having a player like de Klerk has undoubtedly enhanced the image and reputation of the club worldwide. More people talk about and know of the club due to the presence of someone like de Klerk. From a branding perspective, he is a dream as he is so marketable, demonstrated by the column inches dedicated to him in the media.
De Klerk leaves after 5 magical years in which he has cemented his status as a Sale legend. Realistically no-one can really begrudge him for accepting a life-changing contract offer from Japan which potentially could be his last big contract in his career. It has been a privilege for everyone at the club to watch him week in, week out in a Sale shirt and it will not be the same without him, both on and off the field.
De Jager joined the club from the Blue Bulls in South Africa ahead of the 2019 World Cup. It could be argued that the signing of de Jager was one of the biggest additions in the club’s history considering his standing in the world game in his position. He was a key part of the Springbok’s World-Cup winning team, however he suffered a serious shoulder injury in the first-half of the World Cup Final, perhaps a pre-cursor to what was to come during his tenure at Sale. The shoulder injury ruled him out for around 4 months, leading to him only making his Sale debut off the bench against London Irish in March 2020.
During his 3 years at the club, he has been plagued by injury and missed a huge number of games. He has played just 26 times for the club in nearly 3 seasons, meaning he has missed a lot more games than he has played in. There is no doubting de Jager’s ability as an elite lock, but his injury record has meant that the club has had to become accustomed to being without his services. Back in December, before de Jager’s future was decided, the club announced the statement signing of Jonny Hill from Premiership rivals Exeter Chiefs. Therefore, despite the loss of an international lock, the club are prepared for it with the arrival of another international second-row.
One quality that a player like de Jager possesses that shouldn’t be underrated is the ability to improve the players around him. There is no doubt that his fellow locks at the club would have learnt a huge amount from training and playing alongside him and the younger players will inevitably look up to players like him. With de Jager and fellow second-row JP du Preez leaving the club this summer, there will be a pressure on the likes of Dom Barrow, Alex Groves and Josh Beaumont to step up next season. In an ideal world the club would have wanted to have kept Lood de Jager but his desire to return home for personal reasons as well as the salary cap drop have led to his departure. De Jager’s departure is a sad one and you never want to lose players of his calibre, but with the salary cap at a lower level for the next few seasons and considering his injury record the club will likely not miss him as much as they will Faf de Klerk.
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