After the Springboks’ 32-12 win over England in the final, the players were congratulated by Prince Harry who stepped into a dressing room soaked with beer and champagne. After a few measured handshakes, the Duke of Sussex was suddenly gripped around the neck by De Jager’s meaty arm as Eben Etzebeth flexed a bulging bicep in the background.
“His security guard told me off for that,” De Jager recalls for The Rugby Paper. “They also told me I wasn’t allowed to take a photo with him. I said, ‘too late’. No one else in the team got to take a photo with him with their own phone. I’m the only guy in the squad who has one and stuck it on my Instagram.”
Sale Sharks-signing De Jager can be forgiven for forgetting himself in that moment. Not only was he high on the adrenaline of becoming a World Cup winner, he was also high on a large amount of morphine. Just after 20 minutes into that one-sided contest at the International Stadium in Yokohama, De Jager’s already vulnerable left shoulder met a rampaging Billy Vunipola and dislocated from its socket. The 6ft 9in Bok crumpled in a heap and was substituted.
“I’m actually proud of that,” he says. “We promised each other before the game that we’d put our bodies on the line and that’s exactly what I did. I gave everything I had for my country.”
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