Injured Bok working hard to 'enjoy the Stormers again'

INTERVIEW: Sunday will be another Springboks fixture Evan Roos will unfortunately have to make do with watching on television.

Having missed last year’s World Cup through non-selection, his 2024 international year was cut short after just two appearances.

There was a start in the June win over Wales in London followed four weeks later by a follow-up July run in the No8 jersey versus Portugal in Bloemfontein, but no more. No involvement in South Africa’s first full Rugby Championship triumph since 2019, and now no involvement either in the three-game Nations Series which begins away to Scotland in Edinburgh.

Before, such a situation would have crushed him. Not now, though. Set to turn 25 with his next birthday in January, a lengthy chat with his father served as an epiphany. Having quickly jumped from winning the United Rugby Championship title in 2022 with the Stormers into a Springboks debut versus Wales some weeks later, life came at him fast but now it’s time for a breather in order to come back better in the long run.

The dicky shoulder he was carrying for quite a while needed a solution once and for all and a six-month lay-off was a reasonable price to pay for someone who now views his career through the prism of maturity.

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“Shoulder needed an operation but it’s doing good. It was needed. Just wear and tear on my shoulder. I’m doing great. I’m not going to lie, it’s good to rest,” he enthused when RugbyPass recently caught up with him.

“I felt a niggle but didn’t think too much of it. But playing more and more it got sorer. It got to a stage where it was not unbearable but I went for a scan and the specialist said, ‘Listen, this needs to be operated on.

“If you carry on you are going to have lots of effects’. There is never a good time for injury ever but it is what it is. I am still young, so longevity-wise I am happy I got the op in Cape Town and it went well, went amazing.”

Listening to Roos, his current level of positivity was undeniable.

Quite the mature development when in the past his perfectionist attitude would have left him anxious and worried about the consequences of missing out on so much rugby.

“Not that I was lost but you have to go through these things on your own and the past three years, everything happened so fast that you kind of lose track,” he explained.

“In a funny way this injury has been like a reset for myself where I can think, ‘Okay, what do I really want to do in life?’ Not in terms of my career but what I believe in and who I am. It gives you time to think about things and I am grateful for that.

“It’s not a long-term injury, it’s medium to long-term. I did the scans on my shoulder with the Boks, so they absolutely know what is going on. In terms of feedback, now it’s just to rehab, get strong again and enjoy it for the Stormers again.

“In the past, especially in my second and third season, I did things to favour myself to get to the Boks and sometimes I did things I don’t usually do in a game in trying to improve and get better where now the thing I am excited for is to go back and enjoy my rugby with the Stormers.

“Obviously being a Bok is awesome and it’s one of my life goals, to keep on trying to perform for them but when I get back now my mindset is very simple, just to go and enjoy the Stormers again. That last season and a half I have been hard on myself, missing that aspect of enjoyment.

“Now I just want to be my old self, enjoy the rugby and if the honour and duty comes to play with the Springboks, I will do my best in that but it’s firstly focus in on the team that matters a lot to me as well.”

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Who was Roos’ sounding board for this realisation? “I’d a long chat with my dad. He knows me and knows I am hard on myself, that I am a bit of a perfectionist in all things I do. He told me that I just must enjoy the game.

“Obviously be professional and know your job, do your job but in that, but don’t be too hard on myself when you make mistakes. That is what I love about being part of the Stormers, that I can go and enjoy myself in a responsible way in terms of playing rugby. I can’t really ask for more.

“The beginning was tough. You try and deny it in the beginning but it does have an effect. Having my supporters, my family and my faith, that helps a lot accepting things and it creates calmness, that there is a bigger plan hopefully in place.

“It’s learning not to put my identity in rugby or materialistic things, put it in your character and your foundation, things that actually matter. That has been a massive calming relief for myself.”

It’s now 13 months since Roos was left watching TV in South Africa when the Springboks clinched back-to-back Rugby World Cup titles with their one-point win over New Zealand in Paris. The back-rower had ambitions of being involved, but his form in two Test appearances in the lead-up to the squad selection wasn’t enough to squeeze him onto the plane for France.

That left him beavering away at the Stormers and he had club duty to attend to on the day of the 2023 final. “We played Scarlets in Stellenbosch and then we were leaving for a four-week tour for the URC, so I watched it in Brauhaus in Stellenbosch with JJ Kotze, his fiancée, Neethling Fouche, and Ben Loader,” he recalled with a smile.

“It was unique, the weirdest thing to watch. Everyone was hyped and I was stressed because I was part of it but not part of it and you want them [the Springboks] to win so badly. Usually I watch rugby on my own, especially when the Boks play.

“I don’t watch them in public spaces because people are going to come and chat rugby and I want to watch it. But people were so cool about it and when we won, it was something I have never seen before, people on cars in the roads of Stellenbosch. The place didn’t sleep and I felt so tired the next day flying to Glasgow. It was special. The second World Cup was more special than the first.”

It was at a coffee shop in Stellenbosch when RugbyPass first sat down to interview Roos in April 2023, a no-clock-ticking, shoot the breeze chat that lasted the guts of an hour. This catch-up in Cardiff a year and a half later, though, was different, the quick-speaking Roos aware his time was of the essence.

Having arrived in the UK only the day before and set to fly back to South Africa later that Tuesday afternoon, Roos knew he would soon be wanted downstairs on the Principality Stadium pitch for pictures with the Champions Cup and representatives from the other 23 clubs taking part.

Before he dashed off, there was still plenty to say about Cape Town and the Stormers. When we previously spoke, he had mentioned how he was looking to swap living in the university town of Stellenbosch for a in-city stint beside the beach in Sea Point. Did he make the move?

“It’s Green Point actually and I’m really loving it. It’s a lovely ocean, love the lifestyle as well. A bit different from Stellenbosch, but my English has improved dramatically which I am happy about. A lot of people that also studied in Stellenbosch when I was there have jobs in town now so I have a few mates there and you get to meet a bunch of new people – foreigners, locals – so I’m enjoying it. Really can’t complain.

“Rugby is everything in Stellenbosch but funnily enough, I expected Cape Town to be a bit more open and not very sports focused but you do run into a lot of people who know rugby and know sports. I thought I was not getting away from it but would encounter it less in town, but the people are just as sports crazy as in Stellenbosch.”

When visiting Cape Town, it definitely is evident how much the locals are invested in this iteration of the Stormers, a franchise now playing its home matches at the more central Cape Town Stadium having exited the dated Newlands.

“What is cool now is the city of Cape Town getting behind us,” enthused Roos.

“We want to play for the city and the whole Western Cape, it’s not just Cape Town. To have the backing of your municipality shows you the faith they have in us and the pride we have in playing for the area.”

Roos was wearing the latest Stormers jersey which has the names of more than 350 players stitched into it who have played for the club since 1998.

“My name is here,” he beamed.

“It is cool to see your name and then you see a Schalk Burger or Jean de Villiers there or Bryan Habana, or the guys who are still playing, Deon Fourie, Steven Kitshoff… all those guys.

“It’s special. When I saw the jersey it was, ‘It’s not yours, you have it for a while and then it’s the next guy’s turn’. But you are part of a special core of players who have played for the Stormers and part of a special group that not everyone can say they were a part of. For me it’s a massive honour to have my name on the shirt.

“We have won the URC before, been in a second final, didn’t do too well last year but the next thing is to get to a semi-final or final of the Champions Cup. We want to do as good as we can. It would be awesome if we can be part of this dynasty of the Stormers of seven to 10 years where we just dominated and did well. Hopefully we can recreate that.”

Mention of icons such as Burger and de Villiers, it was while appearing on the Boks Office, the RugbyPass TV show, in early August in the company this pair of legendary Springboks when Roos made public the operation-needed prognosis about his shoulder.

It wasn’t his only studio appearance with them since his injury, so what has he made about hanging out with the 2007 World Cup winners whose achievements are still fondly remembered by the fans?

“You just realise they are humans, just good people who happened to play rugby. If I can be an eighth of the type of people they are I will have done a good job. I look up to them in the way they are and the way they speak and conduct themselves and what they did as rugby players firstly.

“I enjoy the chatty part of it and maybe one day it might be something that I do. If it is it’s not a bad job, but I enjoy the people having confidence in me speaking there. I didn’t think they would but it’s cool, I enjoy it.

“The game has changed a bit (listening to them) and it is not for worse or better, it’s just as the world changes everything changes. We [the class of 2024] have got our own stories and one day a newer generation will talk about this and that and think we are crazy.”

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