Kings Of The Jungle Where Wild Beasts Come To Play

Brendan Gallagher continues his enthralling series by looking at rugby’s feared enforcers

- Brendan Gallagher

1 Jacques Burger (Namibia)

The King as far as I am concerned. I never saw a harder, tougher, player on a rugby pitch – mentally or physically. Impervious to pain, aggressive, undaunted, remorseless, courageous – Burger spent his rugby life at the coalface dishing out pain and receiving it in equal measure and never flinched once.

Just look at that face for a moment, one of the great sporting portraits of modern times. Scarred, haggard, fatigued, sweaty, stressed, exhausted but triumphant. You knew exactly what you were getting with Burger and, if you were an opponent, what was coming your way.

He took the tough route to the top, but you would know that without reading his CV. Born and raised in Namibia who are minnows in just about every Test they play. A spell at Currie Cup whipping boys Griquas and then the resident hard man at Aurillac in Pro D2. His indomitable tackling and carrying caught Saracens’ eye at RWC2007, but he was committed to a spell at the Blue Bulls before he eventually made it to north London.

Signed for relative peanuts – many of Saracens best players were which only annoys their opponents even more – he immediately flooded the place with his positivity and warrior ways and the simplicity of his approach. He was arguably the catalyst for many of their great successes. Ultimately he saw rugby as merely a job of work, indeed he used to famously tweet ‘Let’s get to work’ on the morning of every shift, sorry, game.

At RWC2011 he was a wonder. Playing virtually on one leg after various injuries, he was still the best flanker on view despite appearing in a Namibia side that took a battering in every game. Without him they would have lost most games by a hundred points.