Koster's Last Game

Nick Koster, will be playing his last rugby match when he captains Cambridge against Oxford in the Varsity Match on Thursday, 6 December 2018.

He has done things in a reverse order of sorts. A player usually goes university, and then big rugby before retirement. Koster will be doing it differently – big rugby, then university. He was only 18 when he was already playing representative rugby.

He comes from a big family of sheep farmers and horse breeders with many males, all of who are keen sportsmen with rugby as the best of it.

Nick Koster had an outstanding career at the Diocesan College, called Bishops. Academically and in leadership roles he was outstanding and played for Western Province Schools at Craven Week and played for South African Schools for two years – 2006 and 2007. In 2008 he played for Western Province, and in 2009, when he was just 19, his Super Rugby career started with the Stormers. In 2008, at 18, he was the uncapped player in the Barbarian side that played Australia.

His last season of Super Rugby was in 2012, after which he went off to play for Bath where his schoolmate Francois Louw was playing, and then for Bristol. Bristol released him from contract and he went off to Queen’s College, Cambridge, to complete a Master of Studies in Social Innovation.

In an interview he reflected on how great it is to be back in amateur rugby. After all he had become a part of professional rugby as a teenager. And in his career he suffered several injuries. At his best he was fast, clever, creative loose forward – usually a loose forward but occasionally a wing for the Stormers.

Koster fully intends that the Varsity match will be his last and means to give it his best.