Joost Heysteck van der Westhuizen, who has died at the age of 45, became one of South Africa’s greatest rugby players in the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s and led the Springboks to the World Cup in 1999. When he retired from the game in 2003 he had amassed 89 Test caps, the most by a Springbok at the time.
Van der Westhuizen was a fierce competitor on the field and was much respected by his opponents and in later life showed the same dogged determination and fighting spirit as he battled with motor neuron disease.
His life in rugby led to many highs but he also experienced very many lows, as scandals off the field led to his being splashed across the front pages of local newspapers and magazines. Van der Westhuizen though will be remembered for his feats on the rugby field, from his beloved Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria to all the great stadiums around the world.
With an uncharacteristically big build for a scrumhalf and possessing great pace and skills he was an incredible specimen on the rugby field, terrorising opponents with his powerful runs, sniping breaks, strong pass and clever kicks. He was a great tackler and never stood back for anyone ... with his big hits during the 1995 World Cup in South Africa helping the country get past the mighty New Zealand in the final.
It was that tournament that rocketed the then 24-year-old to superstar status, having made his Springbok debut just two years earlier, against Argentina in Buenos Aires. When he retired he had scored 38 tries for the Boks, a record which was only recently broken by Bryan Habana. He was also the most capped Bok of all-time, but Percy Montgomery, John Smit and Victor Matfield have all gone past him in the caps stakes.
Besides playing a key role in the Springbok team of 1995, the more mature and experienced Van der Westhuizen then led the Boks to the 1999 tournament in Wales, being handed the captaincy by Nick Mallett after the coach had dropped the captain of the last three years, Gary Teichmann, from the squad.
“It was the chance of a lifetime,” Van der Westhuizen said in Edward Griffiths’ book, The Captains. “As a boy I always dreamed about playing for South Africa, but I never dared hope I would one day be a Springbok captain. I felt really sorry for Gary, and I telephoned him to tell him so, but I had to accept Nick’s offer. It was an incredible honour.”
Van der Westhuizen also went to the World Cup in 2003 in Australia, under Rudolph Straeuli. In total, Van der Westhuizen led the Boks on 10 occasions.
As a member of the Blue Bulls, from 1993 to 2003, he enjoyed the physical aspects of the game and was for many years the key man in the provincial outfit. He won two Currie Cups (1998 and 2002), a Tri-Nations title (1998) and the World Cup (1995). Regarded by South Africans as the greatest scrumhalf ever produced and certainly viewed by the world as one of the finest No 9s, Van der Westhuizen was inducted into the Rugby Hall of Fame in 2007.
While he never managed to win the prestigious SA Rugby Player of the Year award, he was nominated on no less than six occasions and was frequently named as the No 9 in world team selections.
One of Van der Westhuizen’s greatest rivals on the rugby field, New Zealand’s Justin Marshall, called the Pretoria-born player the greatest scrumhalf ever produced by South Africa. “When he was on song he could flip a game and win it almost single-handedly,” Marshall told the media some time ago. “He was a magic player. One time I remember he made a break through the line, I was defending deeper, and I thought this was my chance to line him up and put him into a hospital ward. I launched myself, only for him to chip over my head, pirouette around me and score beside the posts.”
Van der Westhuizen’s rise to the very top of the game didn’t come easy. Griffiths tells the story that between 1989 and 1992, the budding scrumhalf, then a student at the University of Pretoria, worked four night shifts each week, from six in the evening to six in the morning, as a security guard at an office block in downtown Pretoria, earning R2000 a month. And he practised during the day, every day … kicking with his right foot, passing and sprinting.
“For Van der Westhuizen nothing mattered so much as keeping his place in the Springbok team. He would say or do whatever was required. It was his life, his being, his existence, his ambition. It was everything,” wrote Griffiths.
While Van der Westhuizen was much-loved across South Africa, and was respected for his rugby feats, he also courted controversy. In mid 2002 rumours surfaced Van der Westhuizen and at that stage lotto-girl Amor Vittone were seeing each other despite the rugby player being married to Marlene, his childhood sweetheart. Both van der Westhuizen and Vittone denied they were an item, saying they were friends who often bumped into each other at functions, yet a few months later, in late December 2002, the two married in Muldersdrift, Johannesburg.
Just over a year later, after his rugby career had ended, Van der Westhuizen joined Supersport as a rugby commentator and analyst. He and Vittone had two children, Jordan and Kylie.
Then in February 2009, a video of Van der Westhuizen engaging with a mystery woman emerged but the rugby star denied it was him in the footage and said he would lay criminal charges and civil claims against the producers of the video but he never did so. Former South African highjump record-holder Charmaine Weavers (Gale) also came out and said she’d had an affair with the rugby star and a few months after that the mystery girl from the video made herself known. In November of that year Van der Westhuizen confessed it was him in the video and apologised to his wife and South Africa for his behaviour and for lying.
“There were many sins and I did many wrong things. From now on I just want to walk the straight road and do things right. I confess my sins and I apologise, I ask for forgiveness, and that is that,” Van der Westhuizen told the media.
The rugby star lost his job at Supersport and in many quarters lost the respect he had gained from his playing days.
In May 2011 Van der Westhuizen was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of motor neuron disease and given between two and five years to live.
As he was during his playing days, Van der Westhuizen fought the disease with every muscle in his body. He tried new forms of drugs, went abroad to receive treatment and threw himself into his foundation, helping other motor neuron disease sufferers. But with no cure for ALS, Van der Westhuizen eventually ended up in a wheelchair, too frail to walk and having difficulty breathing.
In late March, at the South African Rugby Union’s launch of their new museum in Cape Town, “The Springbok Experience”, Van der Westhuizen was the only Bok captain of the 43 in attendance who got a standing ovation when his name was read out.
Bok captain Francois Pienaar, who played alongside Van der Westhuizen at the 1995 World Cup said: "The people's appreciation for what he did on the field was clear, but there is also sympathy for what he is going through. The biggest appreciation is for what he did on the rugby field, what he did in that No9 jersey ... I don't think there was anyone better."
Van der Westhuizen was born on February 20, 1971 in Pretoria. He is survived by his estranged wife Amor and children Jordan and Kylie.