March 18 - Wikus van Heerden, former captain of the Lions, will be rejoining the franchise on Monday, 22 March 2010.
In January, the Golden
Lions Rugby Union announced the signing of van Heerden and stated that he would join the squad ahead of the 2010 Absa Currie Cup. However, van Heerden’s current club – Saracens – has agreed to release him at an earlier date, and as such he will begin training with the team mid-way through the Vodacom
Super 14 competition.
Van Heerden, or “Captain Courageous”, as he was commonly referred to, left the Golden
Lions Rugby Union at the end of the 2006 Absa Currie Cup competition to join the Vodacom Bulls, and thereafter moved to Saracens.
“We are very excited about having Wikus back with the GLRU”, CEO Manie Reyneke commented this morning. “Wikus spent most of his formative rugby career with the Lions, and is expected to have a big impact on the team when he returns.
“Wikus has always had a very big presence, both on and off the field, and that has no doubt grown over the past few years, making him even more of a leader to his teammates”.
Director of Coaching, Dick Muir, who is currently in New Zealand for the last two tour matches of the 2010 Vodacom
Super 14 competition, has stated that he is looking forward to arriving home and having Wikus join the training squad. “Most of the players have never been on the field with Wikus – they’ve watched him play and have followed his career with great interest, and are very excited about having him on their team. A few of the players – such as Jano Vermaak and Cobus Grobbelaar – have had the pleasure of playing under van Heerden’s captaincy at the Lions, and their enthusiasm of his return is contagious”.
After van Heerden signed with the Lions in January he commented that the Lions had always been a very special place to him as he had spent nine years with the Union before moving over to the Bulls. “With all the changes at the Lions and the new people appointed over the past year, this is an exciting and ideal opportunity for me to make the most of what is left of my rugby career”, he said at the time.
Now his enthusiasm has grown. “I’ve been really looking forward to going back to my first rugby ‘home’, and now that I can go back even sooner, I cannot wait. I will be joining mid way through the
Super 14, and I hope that I will be able to play a few of the games when the team gets back from their tour”, van Heerden said.
