Are Steyn’s Bok days done?

Has World Cup winner Francois Steyn played his last game for the Springboks?

Has World Cup winner Francois Steyn played his last game for the Springboks?

Published Apr 27, 2015

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Francois Steyn holds the record for being the youngest player to win a Rugby World Cup medal, in Paris in 2007 when he was just 19, but at the tender age of 27 he may well have played his last game for the Springboks.

Steyn, no stranger to the media spotlight and currently serving a suspension for an act of foul play in a Super Rugby match for the Sharks, has been omitted from Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer’s 44-man preliminary training squad for the Rugby World Cup in September.

Last June, Steyn notoriously walked out on the team on the Tuesday of their match against Wales in Durban, at a time when the desperate Springbok coach had looked to him to fill the gap left by freshly injured Jean de Villiers.

It later emerged that Steyn had abandoned ship because of personal issues with Saru about alleged unfulfilled deals regarding his medical insurance after his return from French club Racing Metro. The facts of his battle with the national governing body have not come to public light, but it is a fact that he walked out on the Boks in the week of a Test match, and Meyer clearly has not forgotten that day when Steyn showed where his priorities lay.

Steyn is currently with the Sharks on tour in New Zealand, and next week will be cleared to play against the Hurricanes in Wellington.

The hugely talented Free Stater is notoriously media-shy, and when asked earlier this year if he envisaged playing a part in the World Cup in September, he shrugged his shoulders and said: “I have come to terms with the fact that I will probably never again play for the Boks.”

It seems Meyer would agree. It is known that the Bok coach would entertain recalling Steyn if repentance was shown, but many would agree that it is not for Meyer to beg a player to wear a jersey that is the (almost impossible) dream of countless South Africans. - The Mercury

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