Sky’s the limit for Springbok flyer

Thinus Delport’s raw rugby talent was hewn in the rarified atmosphere of the high Transvaal, cut in the glare of Super 12 with the Cats and Lions and polished in the green of his country. A true Springbok.

These days, though, he resides in the royal county of Gloucestershire, commutes past the Hills that inspired Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, and spends most of his waking hours in God’s Country. So, let’s face it, he’s practically an Englishman.
If you want to be picky, then the clinching fact is this. Around this time next season, he’ll have been gracing the rugby grounds of the Premiership for longer than he did the same back home. Those years, he’ll tell you, have involved a change in culture on the pitch as well as off it.
“It’s much different from rugby in South Africa,” he says of life in the Premiership. “It’s not as open. It’s a much more closed physical came and the structure of the season is much more demanding on you as a player than the South African and Southern Hemisphere season.
“When I came, I felt that my international career was over. I just wanted to come over to Gloucester and enjoy the game,” he explains. He did just that.
The Cherry & Whites blitzed the Premiership in 2002-2003 – but not the play-off final – and he found himself on the plane to Australia for a World Cup campaign that he’d given up hope of being involved in.
The tournament didn’t bring much happiness, and neither did his return to Kingsholm. In Christmas week, he damaged his anterior cruciate and medial ligaments against Quins and, after a scan, steeled himself for months on the sidelines.
As he rehabbed, though, contract negotiations to extend his stay slowed and Warriors director of rugby John Brain made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The rest, so far as Sixways is concerned, is club history.
He already had an idea of what to expect in Worcester. His old pal Werner Swannepoel – with whom he still has a restaurant business interest back in Joburg – had just been forced to call time on a Worcester career.
Thinus arrived at a time when life in and around the club was that intoxicating mix of heart-fluttering apprehension and blind excitement after ram-raiding the doors to the Premiership. Pat Sanderson and Thomas Lombard had soothed nerves by investing their belief and careers in the things the Warriors faithful already believed in, and so had Thinus.
If his return from serious injury made him something of an unknown quantity, it only lasted until the opening match against Falcons. He had a presence that was more than the sum of the easy stride, the blistering pace and the power that underpinned it. He’s been a favourite ever since.
It’s no secret that he’s musing over what will occupy him when his boots have been cleaned for the last time. In one shape or form, he’ll be reaching for the sky.
“It’s not far off, maybe a couple of years as I’m 32 in February,” admits the man who’s made the transition from pitch to TV pundit. “That’s been for a bit of fun, really, a bit of exposure to get some confidence if an opportunity arose to get involved. It’s also helped me be more comfortable speaking English in front of a wide audience.”
But it wouldn’t be his first option after rugby.
“If I really could, I’d do flying. That’s my other passion. I started when I came over. I just needed a distraction from rugby. Because I’ve always been interested in flying since I was a young boy, I felt that this was the time to break the week up and go and do something else.”
So far this season, there’s been precious little time to open his logbook.
“I try to go once a month, but I haven’t been for quite a while now,” he admits. “The pre-season was a bit tough, so days off were a question of ‘stay at home and try to recover’. But I need to pick it up and build hours before I can qualify to do my commercial licence.”
If that day comes, and he swaps life on the wing for life in the air, however, he could still be calling England home for a few years yet.
“I’d like to (go back to Joburg) when I retire, but it all depends on what I’m going to do and where the opportunities are going to be to do it.”
The sky could, indeed, be the limit.


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